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The hidden experts in software-engineering communication (NIER track)

Published: 21 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Sharing knowledge in a timely fashion is important in distributed software development. However, because experts are difficult to locate, developers tend to broadcast information to find the right people, which leads to overload and to communication breakdowns. We study the context in which experts are included in an email discussion so that team members can identify experts sooner. In this paper, we conduct a case study examining why people emerge in discussions by examining email within a distributed team. We find that people emerge in the following four situations: when a crisis occurs, when they respond to explicit requests, when they are forwarded in announcements, and when discussants follow up on a previous event such as a meeting. We observe that emergent people respond not only to situations where developers are seeking expertise, but also to execute routine tasks. Our findings have implications for expertise seeking and knowledge management processes.

References

[1]
D. Damian, L. Izquierdo, J. Singer, and I. Kwan. Awareness in the wild: Why communication breakdowns occur. In Intl Conf on Global Software Engineering, Germany, pages 81--90, August 2007.
[2]
K. Ehrlich and K. Chang. Leveraging expertise in global software teams: Going outside boundaries. In Intl Conf on Global Software Engineering 2006, Brazil, pages 149--158, October 2006.
[3]
J. Espinosa, S. Slaughter, R. Kraut, and J. Herbsleb. Team knowledge and coordination in geographically distributed software development. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(1):135--169, 2007.
[4]
J. Herbsleb and A. Mockus. An empirical study of speed and communication in globally distributed software development. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 29(6):481--494, 2003.
[5]
K. Nakakoji, Y. Ye, and Y. Yamamoto. Supporting Expertise Communication in Developer-Centered Collaborative Software Development Environments, chapter 11. Springer-Verlag, 2010.

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  • (2018)Transparency and contractsProceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice10.1145/3183519.3183543(23-32)Online publication date: 27-May-2018
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  • (2016)Continuous clarification and emergent requirements flows in open-commercial software ecosystemsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-016-0259-123:1(97-117)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2016
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  1. The hidden experts in software-engineering communication (NIER track)

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ICSE '11: Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering
    May 2011
    1258 pages
    ISBN:9781450304450
    DOI:10.1145/1985793
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 21 May 2011

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    Author Tags

    1. collaborative software engineering
    2. expertise seeking
    3. human factors in software engineering

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    ICSE11
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    ICSE11: International Conference on Software Engineering
    May 21 - 28, 2011
    HI, Waikiki, Honolulu, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2018)Transparency and contractsProceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice10.1145/3183519.3183543(23-32)Online publication date: 27-May-2018
    • (2018)Towards Improving Information Quality Requirements for Online Health Information Systems: A Review on the Recent Frameworks2018 International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for the Muslim World (ICT4M)10.1109/ICT4M.2018.00034(138-143)Online publication date: Jul-2018
    • (2016)Continuous clarification and emergent requirements flows in open-commercial software ecosystemsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-016-0259-123:1(97-117)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2016
    • (2014)Social computing for software engineeringComputer Science Review10.1016/j.cosrev.2014.08.00213:C(75-93)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2014
    • (2013)The role of domain knowledge and cross-functional communication in socio-technical coordinationProceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering10.5555/2486788.2486847(442-451)Online publication date: 18-May-2013
    • (2013)The role of domain knowledge and cross-functional communication in socio-technical coordination2013 35th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)10.1109/ICSE.2013.6606590(442-451)Online publication date: May-2013
    • (2012)Conway's Law RevisitedIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2012.329:1(90-93)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2012
    • (2012)A Case Study of Group Communication Patterns in a Large Project Software Engineering CourseProceedings of the 2012 IEEE 25th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training10.1109/CSEET.2012.21(134-138)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2012

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