Workshop: Professional Development of Software Engineers

1. Workshop:ProfessionalDevelopment of Software Engineers HazzanOrit Department of Education in Technology and Scinece Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Homepage: http://edu.technion.ac.il/Faculty/OritH/HomePage

2. What can be done?Workshop plan • Personal stories • Tell your story (past and future) • Role models • Tell the story of a role model • Case studies • Construct a case study that illustrates one aspect of the topic • Development environments • Analyze a team meeting • Describe a preferred development environment • Personal development plans

3. Analysis of a team meeting • Observe one of your team meetings in the Cave. If you do not have a meeting during the workshop, based the following analysis on your memory. Identify the main characteristics of the meeting: atmosphere, leadership, topics discussed, etc. Analyze your description: • Do you like the environment you have described? • If yes, what do you find attractive in that development environment? • If not, which of its elements would you change?

4. Analysis of a team meeting (cont) • Based on the above analysis and other impressions: • Describe characteristics of a software development environment in which you would like to participate. • Explain each of the components you mention. • How will you establish such an environment when you become a software project leader?

5. Class discussion: eXtreme Programming fitness to women’s style of management.

6. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Connection between XP and the recruitment of women into the community of software developers. • The suitability of XP to women’s styles of working, managing and living. • XP may help in partially closing some of those gender gaps that exist in the software industry.

7. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Extreme Programming (XP) is accepted as the most commonly used agile software development method. • XP is based on four values that are expressed by twelve practices which support each other. • Kent Beck, Chrysler, 1996.

8. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • The four XP values: communication, simplicity, feedback, and courage. • The twelve XP practices: planning game, pair programming, refactoring, simple design, continuous integration, test driven development, collective ownership, coding standards, short releases, a metaphor, sustainable pace, and an on-site customer.

9. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • XP aims at increasing software quality and reducing the inherent risks of software development processes. • XP is based on the wisdom derived from accumulative experience in the software industry and the acknowledgement that perhaps the development of quality software systems should be conducted on the basis of following very specific procedures. • The attraction of XP over the other agile SDMs is partially explained by the latter fact.

10. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Argument: XP values and practices fit very well women's style of management. • First, some observations about women’s management style are outlined. • Second, it is illustrated how women's management style is suited to XP development environments.

11. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Software development is a management activity. • Both in management and software development one has to make decisions, to consider alternatives, to communicate ideas, to gain both a global understanding of what one does and familiarity with the details, and to be sensitive to customers' requirements.

12. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Women's management style (emphasis is added): • “Women's management style is more equal and collaborative, often described as 'transformational', in contrast to the traditional 'transactional' style preferred by men who rely on power position and formal authority.” (Vinnicombe and Singh, 2002).

13. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Women's management style(emphasis is added): • "Recent research indicates women's management style, which is centered on communication and building positive relationships, is well suited to the leadership paradigm of the 90's." (Peters, 2003).

14. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Women's management style(emphasis is added): • "The women's management style builds very much on participation by the employees and mutual trust, and they become very disappointed if the employees do not live up to that trust." (Kjeldsen and Nielsen, 2000).

15. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • XP suits to women's management style • XP supports communication, information sharing and sustainable pace, in addition to heavy testing, short releases and customer satisfaction. • The main characteristics of women's management style that emerge from the above quotes are collaboration, communication, trust and positive working relationships.

16. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Discussion: What XP values and practices support each pf the following characteristics of women’s management style? • Collaboration • Communication • Trust and positive working relationships

17. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • XP suits to women's management style • Collaboration:pair programming, the planning game, continuous integration, collective ownership. • Communication: one of the four XP values + the planning game, pair programming, refactoring, a metaphor, on-site customer, short releases, coding standards. • Trust and positive working relationships: XP lays out 12 very specific practices. • This attribute of XP enhances trust and may contribute to positive working relationships.

18. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • It seems that XP suits women's management style very well. • The long hours required in the hi-tech industry: • This barrier has been eliminated for women in XP development environments. • The XP practice of sustainable pace.

19. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • The XP practice of sustainable pace. • Rationale: overworked programmers are unable to produce qualified code. • As other XP practices (such as pair programming) ensure productivity during the 40-hour week, XP argues that XP programmers can work at a sustainable pace, be productive and produce qualified code.

20. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Illustrative data: (Reifer, 2002) • 31 XP/Agile-methods early adopter projects • reduction of 25-50% in time to market

21. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • XP delivers the message that qualified productivity can be achieved at a sustainable pace as long as the number of work hours that one puts in are managed efficiently.

22. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Hughes and Cotterell, Software Project Management book: • "[t]here is a good evidence that productivity and the quality of output goes down when more than about 40 hours a week are worked. [...] Clearly, it is sometimes necessary to put in extra effort to overcome some temporary obstacle or to deal with emergence, but if overtime working becomes a way of life then there will be longer term problems." (p. 226).

23. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • In your opinion, why are women not (yet) part of the XP community? • Look at the XP conferences.

24. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • Why are women not (yet) part of the XP community? • The historical development of the software industry. • The term 'extreme' that appears in Extreme Programming. • Why Extreme Programming is called “extreme”? • The adjective 'extreme' may be interpreted as it is used in extreme sports.

25. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • We saw many associations that aim at promoting women in the hi-tech industry. • In most cases these organizations look for ways to help women adjust to the current working framework that characterizes the software industry.

26. Can Extreme Programming Help in Recruiting Women into the Software Industry ? • The presentation of XP as a software development environment in which women may feel comfortable without necessitating any adjustment, is another way to recruit women to the software industry.

27. Short Activity (10 Minutes) Describe a typical day in the life of a software engineer.

28. Future personal professional development plans • Mapping possible opportunities in the field of software engineering • Towards the next meeting: Formulate personal targets and ways to achieve them.

29. Future personal professional development plans • Students’ presentations of their personal professional development plans.

30. Future personal professional development plans • Instructions for follow up • Follow-up on the accomplishment of the personal professional development plan + reflections on the process. • On-line continuation: Orit Hazzan