Alignment Practices Affect Distances in Software Development: A Theory and a Model

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Abstract

Coordinating a software project across distances is challenging. Even without geographical and time zone distances, other distances within a project can cause communication gaps. For example, organisational and cognitive distances between product owners and development-near roles such as developers and testers can lead to weak alignment of the software and the business requirements. Applying good software development practices, known to enhance alignment, can alleviate these challenges. We present a theoretical model called the Gap Model of how alignment practices affect different types of distances. This model has been inductively generated from empirical data. We also present an initial version of a theory based on this model that explains, at a general level, how practices affect communication within a project by impacting distances between people, activities and artefacts. The presented results provide a basis for further research and can be used by software organisations to improve on software practice.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGTSE 2014 Proceedings of the 3rd SEMAT Workshop on General Theories of Software Engineering
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages21-31
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)978-1-4503-2850-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Event3rd Semat Workshop on General Theories of Software Engineering (GTSE14) - Hyderabad, India
Duration: 2014 Jun 2 → …

Conference

Conference3rd Semat Workshop on General Theories of Software Engineering (GTSE14)
Country/TerritoryIndia
CityHyderabad
Period2014/06/02 → …

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Computer Science

Free keywords

  • Management
  • Requirements/Specifications
  • Software/Program Verification
  • Theory
  • Human factors
  • Documentation
  • empirical
  • software engineering
  • development
  • distance

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