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Email: h.m.robinson@open.ac.uk Telephone: +44 (0)1908 653421 Fax: +44 (0)1908 652140 Hugh is a Professor of Computing in the Computing Department at The Open University. Research
Hugh is currently addressing two inter-related research areas: culture and community in software engineering and agile methods. Hugh's research in both areas involves studying practitioners engaged in practice – studying software engineering 'in the wild'. Hugh collaborates in his research with Helen Sharp and Judith Segal, fellow members of the Centre for Empirical Studies of Software Development.
Culture and community in software engineering
What are the shared values, assumptions and beliefs that make us software engineers? How does the software engineering community structure knowledge sharing and provide support through a variety of mechanisms such as mutual engagement, joint enterprise and a shared repertoire of routines, tools, words, processes, concepts, genres, and so on? How are individuals and teams motivated within software development? A better understanding of our community and the culture underlying it will enable us to:
· Gain insight into the nature of our discipline and of professional practice in software engineering. · Support and sustain the community – the strength and character of a community can dramatically shape the associated technology and its success, an example being the role played by community in the development of object-oriented technology. · Prepare newcomers to the field more appropriately. Recognize which practices work and which don't, and thereby inform decisions about change.
Agile methods
Agile methods (such as eXtreme Programming – XP) are relatively new and are often seen as a challenge to more conventional software engineering (see The Manifesto for Agile Software Development). Agile methods are adaptive rather than predictive and people-oriented rather than process-oriented. As such, they represent a departure from the traditional culture of software development, emphasising the importance of 'people work' and a sense of community both within development teams and across the industry. Importantly, the motivation for such methods is practitioner- rather than theory-led with the major fora arising as a result of industrial interest for the development and dissemination of practice. It is important that we understand how such methods work as socio-technical enterprises and how they both challenge & inform more conventional models of community & culture within software engineering practice so that we can track how software engineering as a discipline makes progress. How are ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ utilised within agile methods? How are ‘customer’ and ‘collaboration’ constructed and utilised by agile methods practitioners? How are ‘individuals’ and ‘interactions’ valorised over ‘tools’ and ‘processes’? What are the characteristics of XP teams? Is their an agile culture?
Recent publications
Reflecting on research and practice, IEEE Software, January/February 2001.
Object Technology: Community and Culture, in OOPSLA '02 Companion, ACM Press, 2002, pp. 92-93 (with H Sharp)
An ethnography of XP practice, Proc. EASE (Empirical Assessment of Software Engineering)/PPIG (Psychology of Programming Interest Group) Conference, University of Keele, April 2003. pp 15-27. (with H Sharp).
XP culture: why the twelve practices both are and are not the most significant thing, Proc. Agile Development Conference. Salt Lake City, Utah, 25-28 June: IEEE Computer Society Press, 2003. pp. 12-21. (with H Sharp).
The case for empirical studies of the practice of software development, Proc. ESEIW Workshop on Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (eds. Jedlitschka A, Ciolkowski M), Rome Castles, Italy, 29 September, 2003. pp. 98-107 (with J Segal and H Sharp).
Integrating User-Centred Design and Software Engineering: a role for eXtreme Programming?, BCS-HCI Group's 7th Educators Workshop: Effective Teaching and Training in HCI, 1-2 April 2004, LTSN-ICS: Learning and Teaching Support Network's Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences. (with H Sharp and J Segal).
An ethnographic study of XP practice, Journal of Empirical Software Engineering, 9, 4, 2004 (with H Sharp).
The characteristics of XP teams, Proc. XP2004, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, June 6-10. Published as Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering 5th International Conference, XP 2004, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3092 (eds. Eckstein, J, Baumeister, H), Springer-Verlag, 2004. (with H Sharp).
eXtreme Programming and User-Centred Design: friend or foe? Proc. HCI 2004, Leeds Metropolitan University, 6-10 September. (with H Sharp and J Segal).
Some Social Factors of Software Engineering: the maverick, community and technical practices, Proc. Workshop on Human and Social factors of Software Engineering, ICSE 2005, St Louis, Missouri, May 16, 2005 (with H Sharp).
The social side of technical practices, Proc XP2005, Sheffield, United Kingdom, June 18-23, 2005. (with H Sharp).
Organisational culture and XP: four case studies, Proc. Agile 2005, Denver, Colorado, July 24-29 2005. (with H Sharp).
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