What Could Possibly Go Wrong: Undesirable Patterns in Collective Development

TL;DR

This study identifies and classifies 42 undesirable social patterns in collaborative software development, based on interviews and surveys, and proposes tools to mitigate their impact, enhancing team collaboration.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive bottom-up exploration of teamwork issues, introducing a new classification of undesirable patterns in collective development.

Findings

42 undesirable patterns identified and classified

Survey results show patterns' significance and frequency

Proposed tools and features for managing patterns

Abstract

Software development, often perceived as a technical endeavor, is fundamentally a social activity requiring collaboration among team members. Acknowledging this, the software development community has devised strategies to address possible collaboration-related shortcomings. Various studies have attempted to capture the social dynamics within software engineering. In these studies, the authors developed methods to identify numerous teamwork issues and proposed various approaches to address them. However, certain teamwork issues remain unstudied, necessitating a comprehensive bottom-up exploration from practitioner's perceptions to common patterns. This paper introduces the concept of undesirable patterns in collective development, referring to potential teamwork problems that may escalate if unaddressed. Through 38 in-depth exploratory interviews, we identify and classify 42 patterns, revealing their origins and consequences. Subsequent surveys, 436 and 968 participants each, explore the significance and frequency of the undesirable patterns, and evaluate potential tools and features to manage these patterns. The study contributes a nuanced understanding of undesirable patterns, evaluating their impact and proposing pragmatic tools and features for industrial application. The findings provide a valuable foundation for further in-depth studies and the development of tools to enhance collaborative software engineering practices.