TY - JOUR

T1 - Accountability in Brazilian Governmental Software Project

T2 - How Chat Technology Enables Social Translucence in Bug Report Activities

AU - Tenório, Nelson

AU - Pinto, Danieli

AU - Bjørn, Pernille

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank Cesumar Institute of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Instituto Cesumar de Ci?ncia, Tecnologia e Inova??o ? ICETI), Maring? ? Paran? ? Brazil; MGA Public Management, Maring? ? Paran? ? Brazil; Program to Support Private Higher Education ? PROSUP of Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel ? CAPES, Brazil. Funding Information: We would like to thank Cesumar Institute of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Instituto Cesumar de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação – ICETI), Maringá – Paraná – Brazil; MGA Public Management, Maringá – Paraná – Brazil; Program to Support Private Higher Education – PROSUP of Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel – CAPES, Brazil. Publisher Copyright: © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2018/12/1

Y1 - 2018/12/1

N2 - Fixing software bug is part of the daily work routine in software engineering which requires collaboration and thus has been explored as a core CSCW domain, since the early inception of the research field. In this paper, we explore the use of chat technology in software engineering by analyzing the coordination between client and vendor in a large government software project in Brazil (Gov-IT). We collected our empirical material through face-to-face and online interviews, site and chat forums observations. Looking closely at the bug fixing activities within Gov-IT, we find that the client and the vendor use chat technology to coordinate their cooperative work by enabling the participants to monitor the availability of developers and the urgency of detecting bugs synchronously. This way, the chat technology made it possible for the client to report bugs and developers to resolve bugs in a timely manner. Moreover, the chat technology enabled the participants to request and share artefacts synchronously, making it possible to analyze and understand the contextual nature surrounding bugs faster than using the bug tracking system. Finally, the chat technology enabled participants in enacting commitment and interdependence across vendor and client, creating cooperative situations of mutual dependence. Our results suggest that we, as CSCW designers, must rethink the design of bug tracking systems and find new ways to re-configure systems, so they support the coordinative practices involved in detecting, analyzing, and resolving critical and severe software bugs synchronously.

AB - Fixing software bug is part of the daily work routine in software engineering which requires collaboration and thus has been explored as a core CSCW domain, since the early inception of the research field. In this paper, we explore the use of chat technology in software engineering by analyzing the coordination between client and vendor in a large government software project in Brazil (Gov-IT). We collected our empirical material through face-to-face and online interviews, site and chat forums observations. Looking closely at the bug fixing activities within Gov-IT, we find that the client and the vendor use chat technology to coordinate their cooperative work by enabling the participants to monitor the availability of developers and the urgency of detecting bugs synchronously. This way, the chat technology made it possible for the client to report bugs and developers to resolve bugs in a timely manner. Moreover, the chat technology enabled the participants to request and share artefacts synchronously, making it possible to analyze and understand the contextual nature surrounding bugs faster than using the bug tracking system. Finally, the chat technology enabled participants in enacting commitment and interdependence across vendor and client, creating cooperative situations of mutual dependence. Our results suggest that we, as CSCW designers, must rethink the design of bug tracking systems and find new ways to re-configure systems, so they support the coordinative practices involved in detecting, analyzing, and resolving critical and severe software bugs synchronously.

KW - Bug tracking

KW - Chat technology

KW - Coordination

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048366936&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10606-018-9326-0

DO - 10.1007/s10606-018-9326-0

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85048366936

VL - 27

SP - 715

EP - 740

JO - Computer Supported Cooperative Work

JF - Computer Supported Cooperative Work

SN - 0925-9724

IS - 3-6

ER -