Examining life at the code face

Abstract

In this paper, we present the work of a research team at the University of Limerick, Ireland, focusing on work practices in a distributed software development environment. Adopting ethnographically-informed methods, the researchers have observed the activity of a software development team from an Irish subsidiary of a multinational company over a period of 18 months. The paper presents our perspective on the existing literature, the theoretical foundations of our work, and the approach we have taken. This research work is ongoing and in this paper we provide a selection of vignettes which the authors found of interest for a deeper analysis. Our aim is to understand the impact of the global distribution of software development on collaborative work practices in this particular work setting.