Skip to main content

A Comparative Study of Testers’ Motivation in Traditional and Agile Software Development

  • Conference paper
Book cover Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 8892))

Abstract

The future software engineers looking for positions in the software industry tend to lean towards software development/coding rather than software testing. Our study investigates what factors cause software testing professionals working both in agile and traditional methodologies, to choose and remain in this career path. Using a qualitative survey among software development companies we retrieve information about the difference between the traditional and agile testers. In addition we identify information about the motivating and de-motivating factors in current testing practices. The results could help the companies in their recruiting processes, in the transition from traditional to agile within a company and in motivating their testers, which will lead to better job satisfaction and productivity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. DeMarco, T., Lister, T.: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Dorset House (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Herzberg, F.: One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees. Harv. Bus. Rev. 46, 53–62 (1968)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Mayo, E.: The social problems of an industrial civilization. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London (1949)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Beecham, S., Baddoo, N., Hall, T., Robinson, H., Sharp, H.: Motivation in Software Engineering: A systematic literature review. Inf. Softw. Technol. 50, 860–878 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Franca, A.C.C., Gouveia, T.B., Santos, P.C.F., Santana, C.A., da Silva, F.Q.B.: Motivation in software engineering: A systematic review update. In: 15th Annual Conf. on Evaluation & Assessment in Softw. Eng. (EASE 2011), pp. 154–163. IET (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Boehm, B.W.: Software Engineering Economics. Prentice Hall (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Whitworth, E., Biddle, R.: Motivation and Cohesion in Agile Teams. In: Concas, G., Damiani, E., Scotto, M., Succi, G. (eds.) XP 2007. LNCS, vol. 4536, pp. 62–69. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. McHugh, O., Conboy, K., Lang, M.: Using Agile Practices to Influence Motivation within IT Project Teams. Scand. J. Inf. Syst. 23 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Fernández-sanz, L., Villalba, M.T., Hilera, J.R., Lacuesta, R.: Factors with Negative Influence on Software Testing Practice in Spain: A Survey 2 Analysis of Testing Practices in Organizations, pp. 1–12

    Google Scholar 

  10. Shah, H., Harrold, M.J.: Studying human and social aspects of testing in a service-based software company. In: Proceedings of the 2010 ICSE Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2010, pp. 102–108. ACM Press, New York (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Deak, A., Stålhane, T., Cruzes, D.: Factors Influencing the Choice of a Career in Software Testing among Norwegian Students. In: Software Engineering, p. 796. ACTA Press, Calgary (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Boehm, B.W.: Verifying and validating software requirements and design specifications. IEEE Softw. 1, 75–88 (1984)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Grindal, M., Offutt, J., Mellin, J.: On the Testing Maturity of Software Producing Organizations. In: Test. Acad. Ind. Conf. Pract. Res. Tech. (TAIC PART 2006), pp. 171–180 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Runeson, P., Andersson, C., Host, M.: Test processes in software product evolution: a qualitative survey on the state of practice. J. Softw. Maint. Evol. Res. Pract. 15, 41–59 (2003)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Briand, L., Labiche, Y.: Empirical studies of software testing techniques. ACM SIGSOFT Softw. Eng. Notes. 29, 1 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Beer, A., Ramler, R.: The Role of Experience in Software Testing Practice. In: 2008 34th Euromicro Conf. Softw. Eng. and Advanced Applications, pp. 258–265. IEEE (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Turley, R.T., Bieman, J.M.: Competencies of exceptional and nonexceptional software engineers. J. Syst. Softw. 28, 19–38 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Martin, D., Rooksby, J., Rouncefield, M., Sommerville, I.: “Good” Organisational Reasons for “Bad” Software Testing: An Ethnographic Study of Testing in a Small Software Company. In: 29th Int. Conf. Softw. Eng. (ICSE 2007), pp. 602–611. IEEE (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Causevic, A., Sundmark, D., Punnekkat, S.: An Industrial Survey on Contemporary Aspects of Software Testing. In: 2010 Third International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, pp. 393–401. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Shah, H., Harrold, M.J., Sinha, S.: Global software testing under deadline pressure: Vendor-side experiences. Inf. Softw. Technol. 56, 6–19 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Taipale, O., Smolander, K.: Improving software testing by observing practice. In: Proc. 2006 ACM/IEEE Int. Symp. Int. Symp. Empir. Softw. Eng., ISESE 2006, p. 262 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Sharp, H., Baddoo, N., Beecham, S., Hall, T., Robinson, H.: Models of motivation in software engineering. Inf. Softw. Technol. 51, 219–233 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. De, O., Melo, C., Santana, C., Kon, F.: Developers Motivation in Agile Teams. In: 2012 38th Euromicro Conf. Softw. Eng. Adv. Appl., pp. 376–383 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Myers, M.D., Newman, M.: The qualitative interview in IS research: Examining the craft. Inf. Organ. 17, 2–26 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Kanij, T., Merkel, R., Grundy, J.: An empirical study of the effects of personality on software testing. In: 2013 26th Int. Conf. Softw. Eng. Educ. Train., pp. 239–248 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Boumans, N.P.G., de Jong, H.J., Janssen, S.M.: Age-Differences in Work Motivation and Job Satisfaction. The Influence of Age on the Relationships between Work Characteristics and Workers’ Outcomes. Int. J. Aging Hum. Dev. 73, 331–350 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Robson, C.: Real World Research, 2nd edn. Blackwell Publ., Malden (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Deak, A., Stalhane, T.: Organization of Testing Activities in Norwegian Software Companies. In: 2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, pp. 102–107. IEEE (2013)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Deak, A. (2014). A Comparative Study of Testers’ Motivation in Traditional and Agile Software Development. In: Jedlitschka, A., Kuvaja, P., Kuhrmann, M., Männistö, T., Münch, J., Raatikainen, M. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8892. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13835-0_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13835-0_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13834-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13835-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics