TY - GEN
T1 - The best defense is a good defense
T2 - 44th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results, ICSE-NIER 2022
AU - Matsubara, Patricia G.F.
AU - Steinmacher, Igor
AU - Gadelha, Bruno
AU - Conte, Tayana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Software estimation is critical for a software project's success and a challenging activity. We argue that estimation problems are not restricted to the generation of estimates but also their use for commitment establishment: project stakeholders pressure estimators to change their estimates or to accept unrealistic commitments to attain business goals. In this study, we employed a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to design an artifact based on negotiation methods, to empower software estimators in defending their estimates and searching for alternatives to unrealistic commitments when facing pressure. The artifact is a concrete step towards disseminating the soft skill of negotiation among practitioners. We present the preliminary results from a focus group that showed that practitioners from the software industry could use the artifact in a concrete scenario when estimating and establishing commitments about a software project. Our future steps include improving the artifact with the suggestions from focus group participants and evaluating it empirically in real software projects in the industry.
AB - Software estimation is critical for a software project's success and a challenging activity. We argue that estimation problems are not restricted to the generation of estimates but also their use for commitment establishment: project stakeholders pressure estimators to change their estimates or to accept unrealistic commitments to attain business goals. In this study, we employed a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to design an artifact based on negotiation methods, to empower software estimators in defending their estimates and searching for alternatives to unrealistic commitments when facing pressure. The artifact is a concrete step towards disseminating the soft skill of negotiation among practitioners. We present the preliminary results from a focus group that showed that practitioners from the software industry could use the artifact in a concrete scenario when estimating and establishing commitments about a software project. Our future steps include improving the artifact with the suggestions from focus group participants and evaluating it empirically in real software projects in the industry.
KW - Software effort estimation
KW - commitment
KW - negotiation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132979582&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85132979582&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICSE-NIER55298.2022.9793529
DO - 10.1109/ICSE-NIER55298.2022.9793529
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85132979582
T3 - Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
SP - 91
EP - 95
BT - Proceedings - 2022 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering
PB - IEEE Computer Society
Y2 - 22 May 2022 through 27 May 2022
ER -