2012 SBES - Towards an Explanatory Theory of Motivation in Software Engineering: A Qualitative Case Study of a Small Software Company

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BY
CÉSAR FRANÇA, DAVID CARNEIRO, FABIO Q. B. DA SILVA
SBES’2012
Towards an Explanatory Theory of
Motivation in Software Engineering:
A Qualitative Case Study of a
Small Software Company

Foreword
What is this research about?
How the motivation of software engineers
in the workplace is affected by contextual
and individual factors?
Presentation agenda
• Background
Why is it relevant?
What is already known?
• Research Design
Methods
• Results
Findings
• Conclusions
Next ste
2
motivation of software engineersHow

Part I – Relevance
Why is it Relevant?
3

Software engineering is a
socio-technical activity
“in practice, it is difficult to
disentangle the way people do
things from the methods,
techniques, and computing
technologies they use”
4
Guinan et al., 1998

Generalized world scarcity of
Skilled Professionals
“Competition for skilled human
resources, Turnover & Knowledge
losses”
5
Burn et. al (1991)

Software Engineering is a
unique professional field
“Information Systems people
may be a distinctive group from
the average population
(…) IS personnel had higher
growth need (GNS) and lower
social needs (SNS) than the
general population”
6
Couger and Zawacki (1980)

The Agile Manifesto says:
“Build projects around motivated individuals”
So, “how to meet software engineers’
motivational needs” ?
7
Beecham et al (2007)

Open Source Initiatives
have gained more and more attention
What drives those people to spend
considerable time and effort in OSS
projects “for free” ?
8
Hertel , Niedner, Herrman (2003)

9
Current research effort on Motivation in Software Engineering around the Globe
DA SILVA; FRANÇA 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012...
REHMAN; MAHMOOD, A., 2011;
REHMAN et al., 2011
BHATTI et al., 2008
MCHUGH et al., 2011
YU; MING, 2009
BEECHAM et al., 2006, 2007, 2008;
HALL et al., 2008, 2009; SACH; PETRE, 2012;
SACH et al., 2010; SACH; SHARP; PETRE, 2011a;
SHARP; HALL, 2009; SHARP et al., 2009;
SHARP, 2007; SHARP et al., 2007
KHALIL, O. E. M. et al., 1997
IFINEDO, 2005
WALLGREN 2008, 2011
WALLGREN; HANSE 2007, 2010, 2011

What is known about the
Software Engineer Motivation?
Has achieved important results
on clarifying some factors that
may affect software engineer’s motivation
10
Rewards and incentives
Development needs addressed
Variety of work
Career path
Empowerment/responsibility
Good management
Sense of belonging
Work/life balance
Working in successful company
Employee participation
Feedback
Recognition
Equity
Technically challenging work
Job security
Identify with the task
Autonomy
Appropriate working conditions
Task significance
Team quality
Creativity/Innovation
Fun (playing)
Professionalism
Good relationship with users/customers
Risk
Stress
Poor communication Lack of promotion
Unrealistic goals
Problem solving
Team working
Development practices
Change
Challenge
Science
But there still may be a complex
interplay among motivational factors at
the task, organization, and individual
levels
Beecham, S., Baddoo, N., Hall, T., Robinson, H., & Sharp, H. (2008). Motivation in Software Engineering: A systematic literature review. Information and Software Technology,
50(9-10), 860–878. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2007.09.004
França, A. C. C., Gouveia, T. B., Santos, P. C. F., Santana, C., & da Silva, F. Q. B. (2011). Motivation in software engineering: a systematic review update. International
Conference on Evaluation & Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE) (pp. 154–163). IET. doi:10.1049/ic.2011.0019

Research Gaps
• Motivation is context-dependent
• Limited practical applicability
• Disconnected and conflicting body of
knowledge
• The “job” is the main motivator
11
Sharp et. al, 2009
Sach, Sharp, Petre 2011a

Part II – Research Design
Research Methods
12

Qualitative Research
13
“the principal advantage of using qualitative methods
is that they force the researcher to delve into the
complexity of the problem rather than abstract it
away”
Seaman, 2008, p. 36

Case Study(ies)
“an empirical inquiry that investigates a
contemporary phenomenon in depth
and within its real life context”
Yin, 2008
14

Case Study Strategy
15
Motivation is context dependent
“qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense
of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.”
(Merriam, 2009)
Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (2nd Editio., p. 304). Jossey-Bass.
(Yin, 2009)

Case Study Strategy
16
Motivation is context dependent
“qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense
of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.”
(Merriam, 2009)
Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (2nd Editio., p. 304). Jossey-Bass.
(Yin, 2009)
Government
Organization Private
Not-for-profit
Software R&D
Institute
IT Department
of a Public
University
Small Private
Software
Company
“Maximum Variation Sampling”
method
(Strauss and Corbin, 2007) Open Source
Community

Software
Engineer
Unit of
Analysis
Maximum variation sampling:
• Age
• Background and education
• Years of experience
• Years of employment
• Etc.
Data collection strategy
17
Project
Managers
Software
Engineers
Directors
Semi-
structured
Interview
Semi-
structured
Interview
Semi-
structured
Interview
Diary
Studies
Documental
Analysis

Semi-Structured Interviews
Question Types:
• Background
• Opinion
• Sensory
• Experience
Diary data
18

Semi-Structured Interviews
Question Types:
• Background
• Opinion
• Sensory
• Experience
Diary data
19
Valid evidence
(Opinion | Sensory) supported by (Experience, Diary
or Documents)
(Hypothetical) (Factual)

Part III – Results
20

Context Description
Small & Young software company
• 5 years old
• 5 entrepreneurs / Flat structure
• 27 [young] people
• Agile-like software development
Products & Technology
• .NET, Java, LUA, …
• 1 main Product
• Software on-demand
Collected Data
• 14 people (interviews) / 6 people (diary studies)
• 1 month
• 8h 57min of interviews
• 10 relevant events
Core Mission
“support the development of people and
organizations with software tools, by means
of technical excellence and innovation”
21

What factors affect software engineers’ motivation?
22
Task
Team
Organization

23
Task
Team
Organization
over half of the participants (08/14) were
undergraduate students.
Employment time seemed to be a mediator for the
relevance of learning experiences

24
Task
Team
Organization
Accounted to the unexpected requirements changes!
Short timeslots provided effective performance feedback.

25
Task
Team
Organization

26
Task
Team
Organization
Learning again!

27
Task
Team
Organization

Signs of motivated behavior
June 28, 2013 EASE 201228
How they feel / behave
How they contribute to
the project success

Part IV – Conclusions
29

The Central Story of
Motivation
“the goal commitment of engineers
create the conditions for higher
Job Performance”
30

Motivation
An effective learning job environment
benefits the goal commitment of the
software engineers.
But employment time acted as a barrier for
learning experiences, given the
low variety of work in latter phases of the
projects
31

Motivation
“A learning environment protects the
engineers’ self-efficacy through self-esteem
and self-confidence mechanisms of
overcoming individual failures.”
32

Motivation
Team cohesion creates a very reciprocal
work environment, filled with mutual help,
shared experiences, and self-responsibility.
Responsibility is enhanced by the high
employee participation, conditioned by the
small teams and the direct participation of the
high management in the productive teams
33

Motivation
34
A motivational environment is not
enough to prevent the intention to leave, if
the growth needs of the software engineers
have not been fulfilled
(because of external opportunities for career progression.)

Discussion
General observations Main contributions
35
• We present a theory that explains the complex interplay among
motivational factors at the task, organization, and individual levels
• Complement previous descriptive models, such as the MOCC
• Multi-case replicable design
• While some factors seem to be manageable, others are strongly
inherent to the context.
• How to apply our findings to improve the motivational aspects of
the organization?
• Generalization to other contexts should not be carried out
directly. However, our findings can be reinterpreted in other
contexts, provided factors are carefully translated.
Future Work
• Cross-case analysis of the 5 case studies
• Compare and integrate with other case
studies (using meta-ethnography)

THANK YOU!
Towards an Explanatory Theory of
Motivation in Software Engineering:
A Qualitative Case Study of a
Small Software Company
BY
CÉSAR FRANÇA, DAVID CARNEIRO, FABIO Q. B. DA SILVA
SBES’2012

Towards an Explanatory Theory of Motivation in Software Engineering: A Qualitative Case
Study of a Small Software Company by A. César C. França, David E. S. Carneiro, Fabio Q. B. da
Silva is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0
Unported License.
Based on a work at XXVI Simpósio Brasileiro de Engenharia de Software, Natal, 2012.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available
at http://www.haseresearch.com

2012 SBES - Towards an Explanatory Theory of Motivation in Software Engineering: A Qualitative Case Study of a Small Software Company

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2012 SBES - Towards an Explanatory Theory of Motivation in Software Engineering: A Qualitative Case Study of a Small Software Company