Onboarding software developers and teams in three globally distributed legacy projects: A multi‐case study

Britto, Ricardo; Cruzes, Daniela S.; Šmite, Darja; Sablis, Aivars

doi:10.1002/smr.1921

Cited by 35 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Our findings support those of [4,9], and [13], however, ours are based on an in-depth contextual study of onboarding practices in an agile team and provide more nuance than those prior studies. We identify additional agile practices that support onboarding and show the extensive use of coaching and feedback processes in agile onboarding.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Britto, Cruzes, Smite and Sablis [13] report a study of onboarding in three cases of globally distributed legacy software development, using the onboarding framework of Bauer [12] (described below). One key finding was that the greatest challenge was onboarding remote developers to an ongoing project when agile methods were followed because of the minimal documentation and the need for continuous dialogue with mentors to understand the project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Onboarding: How Newcomers Integrate into an Agile Project Team

Gregory

Strode

AlQaisi

et al. 2020

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing

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Although a stable team is deemed optimal for agile project success, new team members need to join ongoing agile projects. Newcomers must rapidly assimilate into the organisational and project environment while learning how to contribute effectively to the project and integrate into the team without seriously interrupting project progress. This paper addresses how newcomers integrate into an established agile project team and the challenges newcomers and the team face during this process. This paper is a single case study of a co-located agile project team in a large IT department who regularly onboard inexperienced newcomers. We found a mixture of traditional onboarding practices and specific agile practices contribute to the onboarding process. Onboarding challenges include empowerment and mindset change, accommodating part-timers, conveying agile principles, and adjusting to changes in team composition.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Onboarding: How Newcomers Integrate into an Agile Project Team

Gregory

Strode

AlQaisi

et al. 2020

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When teams solve tasks in large and complex systems, they require access to and need to coordinate with many experts making decisions related to the project, for example, architecture, system design and specification, and system integration. Becoming an expert in such large complex systems takes years, 8 which is why large‐scale projects often have too few experts available to support the teams. Furthermore, task interdependences add to the complexity of coordination in large‐scale projects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Team‐external coordination in large‐scale software development projects

Sablis

Šmite

Moe

2020

J Software Evolu Process

Self Cite

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High‐quality work is said to depend on team abilities. However, teams working in large‐scale projects often do not have all expertise to complete their tasks, which are also highly interdependent. Therefore, teams need to rely on coordination with other teams, experts, and supporting roles. In this paper, we explore teams' coordination needs and evaluate the impact of the satisfaction of these needs on team performance. We conducted an embedded multicase study with nine teams in two projects in two companies. We collected qualitative data through nine focus groups and 19 interviews and quantitative data using a questionnaire with 49 members from the studied teams. Our results suggest that project‐, team‐, and task‐related characteristics impact teams' coordination needs. Even in the same project, teams may have different expertise and work coordination needs. We found that the satisfaction of these needs seems to influence teams' performance, although our results are inconclusive and yield a closer look in future research. On the basis of our findings, we recommend the companies to cultivate a networking culture and support teams external coordination with other teams and experts, paying attention to their needs, for example, driven by a lack of experience or increased work complexity.

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“…Britto et al [17] adopt a model to measure the state of onboarding in software organizations. Steinmacher et al [18] qualitatively study systematic literature reviews and responses from various practitioners (including an interview study) across several OSS projects to understand the obstacles new developers in an ecosystem from actively contributing to projects.…”

Section: B Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Onboarding vs. Diversity, Productivity and Quality — Empirical Study of the OpenStack Ecosystem

Foundjem

Eghan

Adams

2021

2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)

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Despite the growing success of open-source software ecosystems (SECOs), their sustainability depends on the recruitment and involvement of ever-larger contributors. As such, onboarding, i.e., the socio-technical adaptation of new contributors to a SECO, forms a significant aspect of a SECO's growth that requires substantial resources. Unfortunately, despite theoretical models and initial user studies to examine the potential benefits of onboarding, little is known about the process of SECO onboarding, nor about the socio-technical benefits and drawbacks of contributors' onboarding experience in a SECO. To address these, we first carry out an observational study of 72 new contributors during an OpenStack onboarding event to provide a catalog of teaching content, teaching strategies, onboarding challenges, and expected benefits. Next, we empirically validate the extent to which diversity, productivity, and quality benefits are achieved by mining code changes, reviews, and contributors' issues with(out) OpenStack onboarding experience. Among other findings, our study shows a significant correlation with increasing gender diversity (65% for both females and non-binary contributors) and patch acceptance rates (13.5%). Onboarding also has a significant negative correlation with the time until a contributor's first commit and bug-proneness of contributions.

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Onboarding software developers and teams in three globally distributed legacy projects: A multi‐case study

Cited by 35 publications

References 43 publications

Onboarding: How Newcomers Integrate into an Agile Project Team

Onboarding: How Newcomers Integrate into an Agile Project Team

Team‐external coordination in large‐scale software development projects

Onboarding vs. Diversity, Productivity and Quality — Empirical Study of the OpenStack Ecosystem

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