How "war stories" can reveal what really happens in software engineering, A Q&A with Carolyn Seaman

Conducted live during a Senior Topics Course on Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria, Dec 7th, 2020. Dr. Greg Wilson shares his wisdom and years of experience on how to run a meeting with software teams.  Some insights shared include:  have an agenda, use tricks to ensure even turntaking, no electronic devices and multitasking and many more.   This talk is also hosted as a video on YouTube. 

Dr. Andrew Begel, researcher at Microsoft, and Dr. Paige Rodeghero, professor at Clemson University in the US, answer questions on their recent paper which describes an Autism Coding Camp (conducted at Clemson, see link below). Paige and Andrew discuss the importance of communication and teamwork for neurodiverse and neurotypical developers and the extra challenges faced going online with this camp. We also explored ideas for more inclusive tools and learning environments, and how to improve onboarding and inclusion of all developers in software teams. This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Diversity,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Oct 30th, 2020.  In preparation for today's workshop,  we read/watched materials posted on this page. This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Michael Hilton, a professor at CMU, visits our course and gives a short presentation on promoting human flourishing through ethical software development. Michael describes challenges software engineers face to day with recognizing biases in machine learning models, ethical dilemmas designing humane software.  He also shares with us why being a teaching professor is the very best job in the world (hint: it is about his ability to shape the software developers of tomorrow).    This talk and Q&A were recorded live as part of a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 27th, 2020. The slides from Michael's talk are posted here. This talk and Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Daniel German, a professor at the University of Victoria, talks about his many years conducting empirical research in open source.    Daniel shares how the practices and challenges in open source provided many rich opportunities for research that are also relevant for industry, such as code review practices, the use of git for distributed version control, and intellectual property practices. While at the same time there are important differences between open source and industry, such as volunteer open source developers have more agency and freedom than paid developers, and the perils of assuming open source are representative of industrial projects.  He also talks about how his research on fairness in Open Stack required qualitative research methods to understand how many developers perceived peer review as unfair and leverages a fairness theory that can be used to understand and address unfairness in reviews in general.    This Q&A was recorded live as part of a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 27th, 2020. The Q&A was based on this talk    This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Jenna Butler, a senior software engineer with Microsoft, visits our course on empirical software engineering and discusses what she learned through a diary study to understand early and ongoing reflections from developers as they transitioned to working from home during the pandemic. In her longitudinal diary study, Jenna asks about gratitude developers feel (e.g., many feel gratitude for being productive at work and to their colleagues) as well as challenges developers experience.   This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Developer Productivity,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 20th, 2020.   For this week, we read materials posted at this page. This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Tom Zimmermann visits our course on empirical software engineering and discusses his many years of research on developer productivity with us.     We discuss what makes for a productive day from a developer's perspective, how time spent programming relates to perceived developer productivity, how individual and team productivity may have to be balanced, the role work environment and team culture plays on productivity and what we can learn (and can't learn) from "fitbit" type data and surveys. Tom also shares some secrets of his research success and this started with his master's thesis.   This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Developer Productivity,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 20th, 2020. This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. James (Jim) Herbsleb visits our course on empirical software engineering and shares how the theory he developed was used to measure social technical coordination in real world projects.  Borrowing from organizational behavioural theories, Jim also discusses how communication concerning sources of complexity is particularly challenging when there is also uncertainty forcing a need for direct communication. We also discuss the challenges faced with collaboration today, but also explore the opportunities that the transparency of social coding tools and the ability to learn from open source brings. Finally, we discuss future work to investigate which communication channels are needed for optimal coordination in a project and how there is an even bigger need to design online or virtual environments that can mimic the benefits that colocation (at least within 30 metres) has.    This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Collaboration, Communication and Knowledge Flow,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 13th, 2020.  In preparation for today's workshop,  we read/watched materials posted on this page and in particular watched this video by James Herbsleb (keynote at ICSE 2014)    This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Anna Filipova, a Senior Manager of Data Science at GitHub, describes the role of identity and social norms in building sustainable online communities and answers questions about how to create a shared group culture, how to hire online, and whether group churn may not always be a negative thing.   Anna also muses whether bots should be used to block negative behaviour or should they try to shape positive behaviour? And if blocking, should this be done a private or public way?       This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Collaboration, Communication and Knowledge Flow,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 13th, 2020.  In preparation for today's workshop,  we read/watched materials posted on this page.  This Q&A is also available on YouTube. 

In this class visit, Dr. Carolyn Seaman, professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, describes the power and drawbacks of using "war stories", a storytelling technique used as part of interviews to learn about what really happens with software documentation in practice.   Carolyn shares with us other advice on using qualitative methods:  "Just as you should never drink or swim alone, never do qualitative analysis alone"!   This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Collaboration, Communication and Knowledge Flow,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Nov 13th, 2020. In preparation for today's workshop,  we read/watched materials posted on this page. This Q&A is also available on YouTube.

Dr. Alexander Serebrenik, professor at Eindhoven Technical University in the Netherlands, answers questions on his recent keynote at CBSoft 2020 which summarizes his years of research on understanding and addressing diversity and inclusion challenges in software engineering.  He also shares with us some of the challenges in studying human aspects since given our training to study technical aspects, and questions are "bots also people"?  The Q&A also leads to discussion about coding courses and hubs for women only, and affirmative hiring actions. Finally, Alexander discusses with us how we may leverage social media and inclusive tools to address diversity challenges.    This Q&A was recorded live as part of a workshop on Diversity,  at a Senior Topics Course in Empirical Software Engineering at the University of Victoria on Oct 30th, 2020.   In preparation for today's workshop,  we read or watched materials posted on this page. This Q&A is also available on YouTube.