The Human Factor in Software Engineering

Everything has a reason. The reason why this blog was so inactive the last months is that I realized that there are some reasons for not writing about the topics that are currently keeping me busy. Firstly, some topics are secret. I do not want that the public knows too soon what I am working on, BEFORE I publish my results. The topics on which I work for my employer are company secret anyway. Secondly, the human factor of software engineering is a topic that touches very personal and emotional questions and the answers on these are subjective, sometimes beliefs and mine are based on (Christian) moral premisses that not everyone shares. Software engineering partly is a social science and as such treats systems whose components are humans. Each human is a complex system, hardly describable by a limited set of variables. And a group of humans is a system with emerging properties that can not be derived from the properties of the individuals. A group can be more competent than the most competent member, but also more cruel than each group member alone. This complexity makes research about humans developing software a field where research is highly difficult. We can measure effects and statistically detect correlations among variables, but interpretation of research results involves beliefs and guesses.

Most of my work life, I have been employed for realizing my superiors´ visions. However, for three semesters, I was a university professor (on a vacant professorship) and tasted the liberty of realizing my own visions. I had returned from practice to science in order to do research which is relevant for practitioners, which makes work life easier. This was my vision, which I could not realize before I was my own boss. I miss this taste! Therefore, I will be my own boss again, starting 1st June 2012. So, if you like, you can hire me respectively my trainings!