A Field Study of Collaborative Software Development Teams (slides - PDF)

Presenter: Cleidson De Souza, Graduate Student, UCI/ISR and and NASA Ames Summer Intern (2002)

Abstract: In this talk I will present the preliminary results of a field study of a software development team conducted during the past five weeks at NASA/Ames. The goal of this fieldwork is to understand the current practices used by the developers with the intent of providing them with computational support for their collaboration. This software team develops a suite of tools called CTAS (Center-TRACON Automation System), designed to help air traffic controllers manage the increasingly complex air traffic flows at large airports. The CTAS development group is composed of 22 co-located NASA employees and contractors, who design, test, document and maintain four different tools. I observed that CTAS developers employ two main tools for coordinating their work: a configuration management system and a bug tracking system. Furthermore, in order to cooperate effectively, they have been establishing conventions for use of these tools. However, these conventions are not supported by these systems. They also use e-mail and formal and informal communication to make others aware of important changes in the system. I am going to continue this study for four more weeks and after that, the data collected will be analyzed in order to identify requirements for technology support for this group.

Bio: Cleidson de Souza is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. His primary research interests are in the field of computer-supported cooperative work as applied to software engineering. In other words, he is interested in understanding the practices used by software developers when working together and in providing adequate computational support for such practices. He has a B.S. from the Federal University of Para, Brazil (Department of Informatics), awarded in 1/92, and a M.S. from the State University of Campinas, Brazil in Computer Science, awarded in 9/98. He is currently in leave of absence from the Federal University of Para, Brazil (Department of Informatics) where he is an assistant professor.