"Communication Is a Scarce Resource!'': A Summary of CHASE'22 Conference Discussions

TL;DR

This paper summarizes discussions from CHASE'22 emphasizing that communication in software engineering can be a scarce resource, impacting project success when unavailable, and calls for research on managing this resource.

Contribution

It introduces the perspective of viewing communication as a scarce resource in software projects and advocates for focused studies on its allocation and management.

Findings

Communication scarcity can threaten project success.

Decision-making delays occur when key stakeholders are unavailable.

Managing communication resources is crucial for project outcomes.

Abstract

Background: Software Engineering regularly views communication between project participants as a tool for solving various problems in software development. Objective: Formulate research questions in areas related to CHASE. Method: A day-long discussion of five participants at the in-person day of the 15th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE 2022) on May 23rd 2022. Results: It is not rare in industrial SE projects that communication is not just a tool or technique to be applied but also represents a resource, which, when lacking, threatens project success. This situation might arise when a person required to make decisions (especially regarding requirements, budgets, or priorities) is often unavailable. It may be helpful to frame communication as a scarce resource to understand the key difficulty of such situations. Conclusion: We call for studies that focus on the allocation and management of scarce communication resources of stakeholders as a lens to analyze software engineering projects.