Opinion Analysis of Software Developers Working Onsite on Public Sector Software Projects: An Exploratory Study

Öz

Among critical stakeholders of software projects developed in public institutions are software developers and project managers affiliated to sub-contractor companies, who are working onsite at the public institutions. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of working onsite in public software projects for software developers and managers with respect to selected factors. The research is designed as an exploratory and qualitative study. The study participants were 10 software developers, one technical team leader and four project managers, all having long experiences in working on public software projects on client premises. Semi-structured interview technique is employed as the data collection method and “ analysis” was applied on the obtained participant responses. Following this analysis, “key ” approach was used to identify the issues to be further considered. It has been determined that the productivity of software developers working onsite at public institutions is low due to intense requests, shortened time to fulfill these requests, and long duration of authorization processes. Moreover, a finding of the study is that the quality of the developed projects and the motivation of the developers are considered to be low for the same aforementioned reasons. Among the foremost causes for these results are the fact that employees work under two different hierarchical structures one in the public institution and one in the software company, more than one managers assign work and there is an authority confusion between organizational units and people in the public institutions.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Content analysis,Exploratory study,Onsite employment,Public sector software projects,Software developer motivation

Kaynakça

1. B. W. Boehm, P. N. Papaccio, “Understanding and controlling software costs”. IEEE transactions on software engineering, 14 (10), 1988, pp. 1462-1477.
2. A. Cockburn, J. Highsmith ,“Agile software development, the people factor”. Computer, 34(11), 2001, pp. 131-133.
3. S. de Barros, et al., “A review of productivity factors and strategies on software development”, In 2010 Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA), August 2010, pp. 196-204.
4. R. Ilies, T. A. Judge, “Understanding the dynamic relationships among personality, mood, and job satisfaction: A field experience sampling study”. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 89(2), 2002, pp. 1119-1139.
5. D. Graziotin, X. Wang, P. Abrahamsson, “Happy software developers solve problems better: psychological measurements in empirical software engineering”. PeerJ, 2014, p. e289
6. P. Mohagheghi, M. Jørgensen, “What Contributes to the Success of IT Projects? An Empirical Study of IT Projects in the Norwegian Public Sector”. Journal of Software, 12(9), 2017, pp. 751-759.
7. J. H. Lim, V. J. Richardson, R. W. Zmud, “Value implications of IT outsourcing contextual characteristics”. Unpublished article, 2007.
8. T. Kremic, O. Icmeli Tukel, W. O. Rom. “Outsourcing decision support: a survey of benefits, risks, and decision factors” Supply Chain Management: An International Journal 11.6, 2006, pp. 467-482.

9. P. Mayring, Qualitative analysis: theoretical foundation, basic procedures and software solution, 2014.
10. D. J. Bluhm, et al., “Qualitative Research in Management: A Decade of Progress”, Journal of Management Studies,2011 p. 48.
11. C. Robson, Real World Research. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002
12. P. L. Li, A. J. Ko, A. Begel, “Cross-disciplinary perspectives on collaborations with software engineers”. In 2017 IEEE/ACM 10th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), 2017, pp. 2-8
13. P. Runeson, M. Höst, “Guidelines for Conducting and Reporting Case Study Research in Software Engineering”, Empirical software engineering, 14(2), 2008
14. L. Haggarty, “What is analysis?.” Medical Teacher 18.2, 1996, pp. 99-101.
15. V. Eatough, J. A. Smith. “Interpretative phenomenological analysis.”, The Sage handbook of qualitative research in psychology, 2008.
16. R. H. Hycner, “Some guidelines for the phenomenological analysis of interview data.” Human studies 8.3, 1985, pp. 279-303.
17. Ü. Akyuz, “Assessment of European Union Funded Projects Finalised by the Ministry of National Education based on the Opinions of Administrators and Experts”, TED Education and Science, 2015, pp. 199-201.
18. Y. Lin, W. Mckeachie, Y. Kim, “College Student Intrinsic and/or Extrinsic Motivation and Learning”. Learning and Individual Differences, 2003, pp. 251-258.