short-paper

Power and Politics of User Involvement in Software Development

Authors:

Francesca da RiminiAuthors Info & Claims

EASE '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

Pages 157 - 162

https://doi.org/10.1145/3210459.3210477

Published: 28 June 2018 Publication History

Abstract

[CONTEXT] Involving users in software development is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Empirical research that studies power and politics of user involvement in software development is scarce. [OBJECTIVE] In this paper, we present the results from a case study of a software development project, where organizational politics was explored in context of user involvement in software development. [METHOD] We collected data through 30 interviews with 20 participants, attending workshops, observing project meetings, and analysing projects documents. The qualitative data was rigorously and iteratively analyzed. [RESULTS] The results indicate that the politics was a significant factor used to exert power and influence in decision-making processes. Communication channels were exploited for political purposes. These contributed to the users' dissatisfaction with their involvement thus impacting on the project outcome. [CONCLUSION] Having multiple teams of stakeholders with different levels of power in decision-making, the politics is inevitable and inescapable. Without careful attention, the political aspect of user involvement in software development can contribute to unsuccessful project.

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Cited By

Mohammad AKollamana J(2024)Causes and Mitigation Practices of Requirement Volatility in Agile Software DevelopmentInformatics10.3390/informatics1101001211:1(12)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics11010012
Neris VRosa JMaciel CPereira VGalvão VArruda I(2024)GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035 - GC4: Sociocultural Aspects in Human-Computer Interaction✱Proceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3702038.3702057(1-14)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3702038.3702057
Rowlands BKautz K(2021)Power relations inscribed in the enactment of systems development methodsInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1232232:2(278-309)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12322
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Index Terms

Power and Politics of User Involvement in Software Development
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Software configuration management and version control systems

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cover image ACM Other conferences

EASE '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

June 2018

223 pages

ISBN:9781450364034

DOI:10.1145/3210459

General Chair:
Austen Rainer,
Program Chairs:
Stephen G. MacDonell,
Jacky Keung

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 28 June 2018

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EASE'18

EASE'18: 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

June 28 - 29, 2018

Christchurch, New Zealand

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Overall Acceptance Rate 71 of 232 submissions, 31%

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Cited By

Mohammad AKollamana J(2024)Causes and Mitigation Practices of Requirement Volatility in Agile Software DevelopmentInformatics10.3390/informatics1101001211:1(12)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics11010012
Neris VRosa JMaciel CPereira VGalvão VArruda I(2024)GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035 - GC4: Sociocultural Aspects in Human-Computer Interaction✱Proceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3702038.3702057(1-14)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3702038.3702057
Rowlands BKautz K(2021)Power relations inscribed in the enactment of systems development methodsInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1232232:2(278-309)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12322
Rachmawati FSuryajaya BHardian B(2021)Impact of Changing Scope and Customer Involvement to Perceived Benefit2021 4th International Conference of Computer and Informatics Engineering (IC2IE)10.1109/IC2IE53219.2021.9649115(232-237)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/IC2IE53219.2021.9649115
Darin TCarneiro NAndrade RCastro RAlmeida R(2019)Integrating HCI Perspective into a Mobile Software Development TeamProceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/3338286.3347545(1-10)Online publication date: Oct-2019
https://doi.org/10.1145/3338286.3347545
Bano MZowghi Dda Rimini F(2018)User Involvement in Software Development: The Good, the Bad, and the UglyIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2018.432125235:6(8-11)Online publication date: Nov-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.4321252
Zowghi D(2018)"Affects" of User Involvement in Software Development2018 1st International Workshop on Affective Computing for Requirements Engineering (AffectRE)10.1109/AffectRE.2018.00008(13-13)Online publication date: Aug-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/AffectRE.2018.00008

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