1. Using Ethnographic Methods in Software Engineering Research Helen C. Sharp Yvonne Dittrich Cleidson de Souza

2. Roadmap Introduction Context and History What is Ethnography? Doing Ethnography. Ethnography in Software Engineering Research

3. Introduction What is our background? Why are we here?

4. Context and History Empirical Research in Software Engineering –Quantitative Methods –Qualitative Methods Software Engineering as Cooperative Work Why Ethnography?

5. Empirical Research in SE A Difficult Beginning

6. computers and programming –ca 1950 the first programmable computers are built machine languages, assembler –1955 - 1960 the first higher programming languages are developed (Fortran, Cobol, Algol) companies start to use computers programming became an occupational area –1960 - 1665 computers are applied in more and more areas the number of programmers increase the term ‘software’ is used more and more –since 1965 third generation computers are introduced (semi-conductor technology) higher level programming languages, databases, programming environments... and then came the Software Crisis

7. The Founding Conferences 1968: Garmisch–Patenkirchen 1969: Rom –Both were NATO conferences –But also the business world and the universities were represented. ‘The phrase ‘software engineering’ was deliberately chosen as being provocative, in implying the need for the types of theoretical foundations and practical disciplines, that are traditional in the established branches of engineering.’ © P. Naur, B. Randell Software Engineering. January 1969.

8. Software Engineering was in the beginning not an abstraction over existing practices but rather a design of an engineering practice.

9. Why then empirical research?

10. Methods need to be tested Victor Basili argued as one of the first for empirical research in Software Engineering –Looking at empirical research inmedicin and manufacturing. –Industry provides a laboratory environment, –in which methods, tools, and processes are tested. –The effect of the treatment is meassured quantitatively. Experience Factory –Collecting data to be able to systematically experiment with methods, tools and processes. © Basili, V. Green, S. (1994). Software Process Evolution at the SEL. IEEE Software, 58-66.

11. But there were other voices

12. Software Development as a Social Activity Naur, P. (1985) Programming as Theory Building. Microprocessing and Microprogramming 15(1985), 253- 261. Nygaard, K. (1986). Program Development as a Social Activity. In: H.J. Kugler (eds.) Information Processing 86. IFIP, 189-198. There is more to the social and cooperative side of software than addressed in the ‘ optimisation paradigm ’.

13. Qualitative Research Methods Used to explore and illuminate the social side of software development. Has its roots in an hermeneutic epistemology. Based on qualitative data, that is data that is not numbers. Also called ‘flexible research designs’ allowing to adjust the mehtods according to its findings. The analysis depends on the epistemological underpinning the researcher applies. Ethnography belongs to the qualitative approaches.

14. Scandinavian System Development Bansler, J. Havn, E. (1991). The nature of Software Work. Systems Development as Labour Process. In: Besselaar, P.v.d. et al.: Information System Work and Organisation Design. Elsevier Science Publication, 145-153. Bansler, J.P., B ø dker, K. (1993). A Reappraisal of Structured Analysis: Design in an Organizational Context. ACM Transaction on Information Systems, 11 (2), 165-193. Mathiassen, L., (1998) Reflective Systems Development. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 10(1&2), 67-118. Mathiassen, L., Pries Heje, J., Ngwenyama, O. (2002). Improving Software Organizations. Addison-Wesley. … and more

15. Software Development as Cooperative Work L. Suchman, R. Trigg (1993) Artificial Intelligence as craftwork. In: S. Chaiklin, J. Lave Unverstanding Practices – Perspectives on Activity and Context. Cambridge University Press. W. Sharrock, K. Schmidt (1996) Studies of cooperative Design. Special Issue of CSCW. Y. Dittrich, D. Randall, J. Singer (2009) Software Development as Cooperative work. Special Issue of the CSCW. … and more

16. And also in Software Engineering: Curtis, B., Krasner, H., Iscoe, N. (1988). A field study of the software design process for large systems. Communications of the ACM 31, 1268-1287. Singer et al. (1997). An examination of software engineering work practices. Proc. CASCON. IBM Toronto, 209Y223, October. Carolyn Seamen (1999) Qualitative Methods in Empirical Studies of Software Engineering, In IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 25(4), 557-572. J. Singer et al. (2000) Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Using Multidisciplinary Approaches in Empirical Software Engineering Research. ICSE 2000 Workshop. Y. Dittrich, M. John, J. Singer, B. Tessem (2007) Special Issue on Qualitative Software Engineering Research. Information and Software Technology 49. … and more

17. And what about Ethnography? Ethnography has been used in many of the cited research articles often in combination with other methods. Ethnography provides a possibility to understand the a software team from a team members’ point of view. Ethnography focusses on how the team manages to achieve its task rather than meassuring the performance. Ethnography allows to consciously handle the researcher’s bias.