The Human Factor in Software Engineering

In the book "Nutella hat Lichtschutzfaktor 9,7: Die volle Dosis unnützes Wissen" about useless knowledge, I read that one person on average owns 60,000 things. How did they count? Do they count all the potatoes in the kitchen? Probably. I would have guessed that I own 1,000 things, when thinking of the last time when I packed everything in boxes, wrapping each single thing in paper. I think of counting seriously all my things now... I do not believe that they are 60,000, even counting all potatoes.
I also wonder: How many data files does one person own? This is easier to count. Maybe, I will count one day. I estimate that I so far got about 60,000 emails and have written about 6,000 emails in my life. Fortunately, most of them are deleted. At least, I hope so!
But: 60,000 things?? Difficult to believe. At today´s shopping, I bought 20 things, but I will eat most of them. And I do now not count all peanuts, tea bags and apples individually. Otherwise, I probably bought 200 things.

A citation from Grace Hopper: "It´s always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." *lol* I always say something similar: "If you ask for permission, you risk to get a negative answer."

Am 22. Oktober findet ab 17:30 Uhr die Auftaktveranstaltung für meine Klara Marie Faßbinder Gastprofessur an der FH Bingen statt. Der Titel meines Vortrags lautet: "Frauen im Software-Engineering - Stand der Forschung". Ort und Zeit finden Sie hier.

Meine Webseite ist nun online:
www.herrmann-ehrlich.de
"Ehrlich" ist nicht mein Partner, sondern das Firmenmotto. :-)

My website now is online:
www.herrmann-ehrlich.de

I proudly can announce that my article submitted to the journal "Risk Analysis" has been accepted. After having been in the repeated reviewing process for one year. These experts gave me a lot to think about, to read further literature, to do further statistical analyses, etc. It is a hard job to publish in a good journal. :-)
Anyway, persistence often pays. It is just important to know / guess right where this will be the case.

Nun ist es offiziell: Im Wintersemester 2012/13 bekleide ich eine Gastprofessur an der FH Bingen. Meine Aufgaben bestehen in Vorlesungen über Software Engineering, Projektmanagement und wissenschaftliches Arbeiten. Außerdem führe ich mindestens zwei wissenschaftliche Studien zur Gender-Forschung in der Informatik durch.

It is now official: In the winter semester 2012/13 I will be guest professor at the University of Applied Sciences of Bingen. My tasks will be lectures in Software Engineering, Project Management and Scientific Research. Additionally, I undertake at least two scientific studies about gender in computer sciences.

A great and recent literature overview about group performance can be found here:

pdf

Teams are not always more efficient than individuals. Whether they are depends on

• the task type,
• process losses by coordination loss, production blocking and motivation loss,
• but also on motivation gain by social competition + social compensation + Köhler effect,
• individual capability gains and losses,
• leadership style
• group composition,
• group synchronization, and
• group learning.

The article discusses research findings and draws conclusions for practical work.

My literature research also brought me to this study about bullying:
http://www.pistes.uqam.ca/v7n3/articles/v7n3a2en.htm
There are many interesting findings in this study. I am most interested in these two:
- Men are bullied by their superiors exclusively and women not only from above but from all directions, including colleagues and even those below her in hierarchy. This is a strong evidence that women´s position in hierarchy is differently perceived than for men.
- Bullying seems to be related to and supported by performance-based payment. This corresponds to my experience with this tool of HR management. It is a powerful tool, exercising strong influence on people´s thinking and decisions, but it is like magic: powerful, but not completely controllable. I believe that performance- or object-oriented payment/ management destroys the team spirit. Maybe, one should treat teams as a unit and define team objectives, but I am not completely sure that this would work well. I remember from sports where the ambitious team bullied weaker team members. When they get rid of low performers, the team performance is higher. So, maybe management by numbers is a Pandora box that one should not open at all.