Why Good Developers Write Bad Code: An Observational Case Study of the Impacts of Organizational Factors on Software Quality

Lavallee, Mathieu; Robillard, Pierre N.

doi:10.1109/icse.2015.83

Cited by 49 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Change requests, especially ones that are tied to internal dependencies of the developed software, have also been reported to increase time pressure [Jemielniak 2009;Lavallée and Robillard 2015]. Similarly, requirements volatility has been mentioned as a cause for time pressure in a study conducted with surveys [Ferreira et al 2009].…”

Section: Causes Of Time Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

Time pressure in software engineering: A systematic review

Kuutila

Mäntylä

Farooq

et al. 2020

Information and Software Technology

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Large project overruns and overtime work have been reported in the software industry. Experiments and case studies have investigated the relationship between time pressure and software quality and productivity. Our search strategy examined 5,332 papers and identified 88 papers as having relevant contributions related to time pressure in a software engineering. Our review investigated definitions, metrics, and causes of time pressure. Also, we map the papers to process phases and approaches. Last, we summarize the effects of time pressure on quality and productivity. The majority of the reported results support the outcome of reduced quality and increased productivity with time pressure.

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Section: Causes Of Time Pressurementioning

confidence: 99%

Time pressure in software engineering: A systematic review

Kuutila

Mäntylä

Farooq

et al. 2020

Information and Software Technology

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“…Their results showed that of a truth organizational factors affect failure-proneness, even above metrics like churn, dependencies, complexity. Lavallée and Robillard (2015) also carried out a study to determine how organizational factors affect working conditions of software developers and in turn the quality of software produced. It was observed that decisions made under pressure due to certain organizational factors such as structure of the organization had a negative effect on software quality.…”

Section: Background and Literature Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical evaluation of software quality assurance practices and challenges in a developing country: a comparison of Nigeria and Turkey

et al. 2016

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BackgroundThe importance of quality assurance in the software development process cannot be overemphasized because its adoption results in high reliability and easy maintenance of the software system and other software products. Software quality assurance includes different activities such as quality control, quality management, quality standards, quality planning, process standardization and improvement amongst others. The aim of this work is to further investigate the software quality assurance practices of practitioners in Nigeria. While our previous work covered areas on quality planning, adherence to standardized processes and the inherent challenges, this work has been extended to include quality control, software process improvement and international quality standard organization membership. It also makes comparison based on a similar study carried out in Turkey. The goal is to generate more robust findings that can properly support decision making by the software community. The qualitative research approach, specifically, the use of questionnaire research instruments was applied to acquire data from software practitioners.ResultsIn addition to the previous results, it was observed that quality assurance practices are quite neglected and this can be the cause of low patronage. Moreover, software practitioners are neither aware of international standards organizations or the required process improvement techniques; as such their claimed standards are not aligned to those of accredited bodies, and are only limited to their local experience and knowledge, which makes it questionable. The comparison with Turkey also yielded similar findings, making the results typical of developing countries. The research instrument used was tested for internal consistency using the Cronbach’s alpha, and it was proved reliable.ConclusionFor the software industry in developing countries to grow strong and be a viable source of external revenue, software assurance practices have to be taken seriously because its effect is evident in the final product. Moreover, quality frameworks and tools which require minimum time and cost are highly needed in these countries.

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“…Additionally, extra costs are named as one of the reasons why certain best practices are not implemented [23]. Lavallee and Robillard [24] also highlight how organizational factors such as structure and culture have an impact on the working conditions of developers. Their preliminary results show that many decisions are made under the pressure of certain organizational factors, which negatively affected software quality.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability design in requirements engineering

Chitchyan

Becker

Betz

et al. 2016

Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion

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Abstract-Sustainability is now a major concern in society, but there is little understanding of how it is perceived by software engineering professionals and how sustainability design can become an embedded part of software engineering process. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study exploring requirements engineering practitioners' perceptions and attitudes towards sustainability. It identifies obstacles and mitigation strategies regarding the application of sustainability design principles in daily work life. The results of this study reveal several factors that can prevent sustainability design from becoming a first class citizen in software engineering: software practitioners tend to have a narrow understanding of the concept of sustainability; organizations show limited awareness of its potential opportunities and benefits; and the norms in the discipline are not conducive to sustainable outcomes. These findings suggest the need for focused efforts in sustainability education, but also a need to rethink professional norms and practices.

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Why Good Developers Write Bad Code: An Observational Case Study of the Impacts of Organizational Factors on Software Quality

Cited by 49 publications

References 13 publications

Time pressure in software engineering: A systematic review

Time pressure in software engineering: A systematic review

An empirical evaluation of software quality assurance practices and challenges in a developing country: a comparison of Nigeria and Turkey

Sustainability design in requirements engineering

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