Communication and Organization in Software Development An Empirical Study

Communication and Organization in Software

Development:

An Empirical Study

Carolyn B. Seaman

Victor R. Basili

University of Maryland

Institute for Advanced Computer Studies

Computer Science Department

College Park, MD, USA

Abstract

The empirical study described in this paper addresses the issue of communication among

members of a software development organization. The independent variables are various

attributes of organizational structure. The dependent variable is the effort spent on

sharing information which is required by the software development process in use. The

research questions upon which the study is based ask whether or not these attributes of

organizational structure have an effect on the amount of communication effort expended.

In addition, there are a number of blocking variables which have been identified. These

are used to account for factors other than organizational structure which may have an

effect on communication effort. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods

for data collection and analysis. These methods include participant observation, structured

interviews, and graphical data presentation. The results of this study indicate that several

attributes of organizational structure do affect communication effort, but not in a simple,

straightforward way. In particular, the distances between communicators in the reporting

structure of the organization, as well as in the physical layout of offices, affects how

quickly they can share needed information, especially during meetings. These results

provide a better understanding of how organizational structure helps or hinders

communication in software development.

1.Introduction

Software development managers strive to control all of the factors that might impact the success of their projects. However, the state of the art is such that not all of these factors have been identified, much less understood well enough to be controlled, predicted, or manipulated. One factor that has been identified [Curtis88] but is still not well understood is information flow. It is clear that information flow impacts productivity (because developers spend time communicating) as well as quality (because developers need information from each other in order to carry out their tasks well). The study described in this paper addresses the productivity aspects of communication by empirically studying the organizational and process characteristics which influence the amount of effort software developers spend in communication activities. This is a first step towards providing management support for control of communication effort.

This research also arises out of an interest in the organizational structure of software enterprises and how it affects the way software is developed. Development processes affect, and are affected by, the organizational structure in which they are executed.

This work was supported in part IBM's Centre for Advanced Studies, and by NASA grant NSG-5123.