The Dynamics of Creativity in Software Development

1. The Dynamics of Creativityin Software Development Daniel Graziotin PROFES 2013 Doctoral Symposium 12th June, Paphos, Cyprus

2. Introduction • Background, Motivation, Purposes 1 • Literature Review • Creativity, Affective States, Improvisation, Research Questions 2 • Research Methodology • Theory Building, Data Analysis, Theory Representation 3 Conclusion What is next 4

3. Daniel Graziotin Background • Researcher • Human Factors in SE • Emotions / Moods • Creativity • Productivity • Web Engineering • Open{Source, Access, Data}

4. Daniel Graziotin Background • Practitioner • Web Development • Open Source Software • Open Knowledge • task3.cc

5. Daniel Graziotin Background • Stuff • Singer • Electric Bass

6. “Programming [..] gratifies creative longings [..] and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.” Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. The Mythical Man-Month, p. 8

7. Software is for People, by People Human Factors must be studied (Crawford et al. , 2012). Process

8. People Trump Process?(Cockburn, 2001) Picture Credits

9. Focus on People Picture Credits

10. Focus on People Picture Credits

11. Software Developmentis Cognitive(Khan et al., 2010) • Creativity • Emotions / Moods • Improvisation Picture Credits

12. Software Engineeringignores • Creativity misconception • Emotions/Moods ignored • Improvisation neglected Picture Credits

13. Purposes of this Study Creativity SoftwareDevelopment Definition Dynamics Influence • Generate a theory

14. Introduction • Background, Motivation, Purposes 1 • Literature Review • Creativity, Affective States, Improvisation, Research Questions 2 • Research Methodology • Theory Building, Data Analysis, Theory Representation 3 Conclusion What is next 4

15. Literature Review Hundreds of Definitions in Psychology Product/Idea Generation (evaluation?) • Novelty • Usefulness Defining Creativity

16. Literature Review Definitions limited for the context of Software Development • Pre-implementation phases • Final Product Defining Creativity

17. Literature Review Gu and Tong, 2004, exploratory research. Software Project developed by students Measurements: Perceived creative time, perceived discipline-based time, and “other” time. Formulated Hypotheses: • Implementation phase most creative, Post-mortem analysis phase least creative; • UML documentation promotes students to do more creative work in requirement specification and architecture design phases; • more creative work does neither accelerate nor decelerate development speed compared with discipline-based work; • developers prefer development phases including more creative work than discipline-based work Creativity in Software Engineering

18. Literature Review Crawford et al., 2012 Previous research on creativity focused on RE Techniques to foster creativity are rarely investigated Linkage between eXtreme Programming and Creative Thinking Creativity in Software Engineering

19. Literature Review Several proposals to foster creativity in software requirements Evaluation is always in terms of the generated product Requirements look like ideas Creativity in Software Engineering

20. Literature Review More than 60 years of studies Angles • Product, Process, Person, and Press Majority of studies on Product (novelty and value) Affective States Creativity in Psychology

21. Literature Review Affective States (Mood, Emotions, Feelings) “one of the most widely studied and least disputed predictors of creativity” (Davis, 2009) Several Studies • Tendency: extreme affective states indicate higher creativity • No big consensus Creativity and Affective States in Psychology

22. Literature Review “Making sense of incoming working events and developing ad-hoc solutions” (Ciborra, 1996) • Problem-setting and problem-solving • Creative Do we always follow the process? • We report to follow the process • We improvise • Essential to IT firms Improvisation is a mood Improvisation

23. Improvisation, Creativity, Affective States Creativity Improvisation ? Affective States

24. Research Questions Is there a misconception of creativity in the context of software development? What are the key components of creativity in software development at the individual, team, and organizational levels? What is the relationship between creativity, moods, and improvisation in software development?

25. Introduction • Background, Motivation, Purposes 1 • Literature Review • Creativity, Affective States, Improvisation, Research Questions 2 • Research Methodology • Theory Building, Data Analysis, Theory Representation 3 Conclusion What is next 4

26. Research Methodology Explorative study Generate a theory from empirical evidence. • Define the steps of the theory building process • Select a strategy to analyze the data • Represent the theory in a meaningful way • Choose research methods AIMS

27. Theory Building Phases Eisenhardt, 1989 1 5 Research Questions Data Analysis 2 6 Case Selection Hypotheses Shaping 7 3 Literature Enfolding Instruments & Protocols 4 8 Field Entrance Closure Reaching

28. Data Analysis Phases Montoni & Rocha (2010), Charmaz (2006) Context& Scope Data Collection Coding Audit • Validity • Open • Conceptualization • Axial • Relationships • Selective • Prioritization • Surveys • Literature Reviews • Structured and semi-structured interviews • Overlaps with Step 1of previous slide

29. Theory Representation Elements of a theory Constructs Propositions Explanations Scope Sjøberg et al., 2008 Sjøberg et al., 2008, p. 324

30. Introduction • Background, Motivation, Purposes 1 • Literature Review • Creativity, Affective States, Improvisation, Research Questions 2 • Research Methodology • Theory Building, Data Analysis, Theory Representation 3 Conclusion What is next 4

31. Conclusion Proposal: generate theory on creativity in software development Creativity, Affective States, Improvisation Major issue: still no focus.

32. Thank you for your attention Daniel Graziotin daniel.Graziotin@unibz.it

33. References Brooks, F.P.: The Mythical Man-Month. Addison-Wesley, Philippines (1975)Ciborra, C.: Improvisation and information technology in organizations. ICIS 1996. p. 26 (1996).Charmaz, K.: Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage Publications, London (2006).Crawford, B. et al.: Agile software teams must be creatives. 5th International Workshop on Co-operative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering. pp. 20–26 (2012).Davis, M.: Understanding the relationshipbetween mood and creativity: A meta-analysis. OrganizationalBehavior and Human DecisionProcesses. 108, 1, 25–38 (2009).Dybå, T.: Improvisation in small software organizations. Software, IEEE. September/October, 82–87 (2000).Eisenhardt, K.: Building theories from case studyresearch. Academy of management review. 14, 4, 532–550 (1989).Gu, M., Tong, X.: TowardsHypotheses on Creativity in Software Development. 5th International Conference on Product Focused Software ProcessImprovement,. pp. 47–61, (2004).Khan, I.A. et al.: Do moods affect programmers’ debug performance? Cognition, Technology & Work. 13, 4, 245–258 (2010).Montoni, M.A., Rocha, A.R.: ApplyingGroundedTheory to Understand Software ProcessImprovementImplementation. 7th International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology. pp. 25–34 IEEE (2010).Sjøberg, D. et al.: Building theories in software engineering. Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering. 1, 1, 312–336 (2008).