The Power of Words in Agile vs. Waterfall Development: Written Communication in Hybrid Software Teams

IF 3.7 2区计算机科学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Journal of Systems and Software Pub Date : 2024-10-15 DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2024.112243

Delina Ly , Michiel Overeem , Sjaak Brinkkemper , Fabiano Dalpiaz

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Software development is constantly evolving, adapting to emerging technologies and development paradigms while leveraging advancements in communication technologies and work modes. We conduct an exploratory case study in a large software organization to investigate how the development paradigm and the formality of communication channels affect written communication within hybrid teams. We perform statistical and content analysis of written conversations from 20 projects involving two software products that use industry adaptations of the Waterfall model and of Scrum, respectively. We found that in agile-developed projects, communication related to the execution-monitoring-control phase of the Project Management Life Cycle is more prevalent, and communication related to the initiation phase occurs more frequently in informal channels. For both project types, communication primarily pertains to the software construction phase of the Software Development Life Cycle. After annotating communication contents using speech acts, representatives are found to be prevalent in informal channels for agile-developed projects, directives are more prevalent in informal channels for waterfall-developed projects, and expressives are more frequent in informal channels for both project types. We provide empirical evidence that development paradigms and communication channel formality impact written communication, with agile-developed projects showing more collaborative interactions in informal channels compared to waterfall-developed projects.

Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

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敏捷开发与瀑布式开发中语言的力量：混合软件团队中的书面交流

软件开发在不断发展，在适应新兴技术和开发模式的同时，也在利用通信技术和工作模式的进步。我们在一家大型软件企业中开展了一项探索性案例研究，以探讨开发模式和沟通渠道的正式性如何影响混合团队中的书面沟通。我们对涉及两种软件产品的 20 个项目中的书面对话进行了统计和内容分析，这两种软件产品分别采用了瀑布模型和 Scrum 模型。我们发现，在敏捷开发的项目中，与项目管理生命周期的执行-监控-控制阶段相关的交流更为普遍，而与启动阶段相关的交流则更多地通过非正式渠道进行。对于这两种项目类型，沟通主要涉及软件开发生命周期的软件构建阶段。在使用言语行为对交流内容进行注释后，我们发现敏捷开发项目的非正式渠道中普遍使用代表语，瀑布开发项目的非正式渠道中更多使用指令语，而两种项目类型的非正式渠道中都更多使用表达语。我们提供的经验证据表明，开发范式和交流渠道的正式性会影响书面交流，与瀑布式开发的项目相比，敏捷开发的项目在非正式渠道中表现出更多的协作互动。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Systems and Software 工程技术-计算机：理论方法

CiteScore

8.60

自引率

5.70%

发文量

193

审稿时长

16 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Systems and Software publishes papers covering all aspects of software engineering and related hardware-software-systems issues. All articles should include a validation of the idea presented, e.g. through case studies, experiments, or systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: • Methods and tools for, and empirical studies on, software requirements, design, architecture, verification and validation, maintenance and evolution • Agile, model-driven, service-oriented, open source and global software development • Approaches for mobile, multiprocessing, real-time, distributed, cloud-based, dependable and virtualized systems • Human factors and management concerns of software development • Data management and big data issues of software systems • Metrics and evaluation, data mining of software development resources • Business and economic aspects of software development processes The journal welcomes state-of-the-art surveys and reports of practical experience for all of these topics.