Sample Selection

CHAPTER 2

The Nature of Software Engineering Professionals

These and other difficulties for the Software Engineering Manager are in large part due to the unique psychological and behavioral characteristics exhibited by the people they manage. A source of these difficulties was measured, documented and reported on many years ago [4] with little fanfare in the Software Engineering Community. But facts tend to be persistent things. These behavioral characteristics have not changed and still present the SEM with problems. They are:

• High Growth Need Strength (GNS) – This refers to the fact that Software Engineers are attracted to difficult, challenging problems. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult to get Software Engineers to do simple tasks (e.g. create even modest program documentation, fix bugs for an extended period, and so forth) for any length of time. Correct or not, they consider these tasks to be simple and unchallenging – in other words boring. If they are bored, they find something challenging to do, even if it is not within the scope of their duties. Many SEMs have discovered that one or more of their Software Engineers were helping people in other projects while their own assignments went uncompleted. The reason? They simply did not find their own assignments to be interesting.
   
• Low Social Need Strength (SNS) – This characteristic manifests itself in the form of working independently. High GNS pushes the Software Engineer to work on difficult problems but low SNS makes working on them independently quite attractive. For example, it is common to participate in a meeting to discuss some serious technical problem that must be solved on an impossible schedule and have a Software Engineer at the meeting volunteer to fix it by saying, “I can take a look and probably have it fixed this week.” The use of “I” rather than “We” indicates low SNS. While this self-reliance is essential to dealing with computers in what amounts to a one-on-one mode, it wreaks havoc with the notion that multiple people working together can achieve more than one person working alone. This also challenges the SEM’s ability to create and maintain a team.

A fair question to ask is, “How many Software Engineering Managers are aware of the nature of Software Engineers as described above?” An informal survey of professional managers in seminars [5] on advanced topics in Software Engineering conducted in Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany and France indicated practically none (less than 5%) had ever heard of these factors. An equally important question to ask is, “What difference does it make whether or not a Software Engineering Manager is aware of the nature of Software Engineers?” The answer is that knowing that this group has a strong tendency to work independently and only want to tackle hard problems means that the manager should put increased emphasis on team building within the group, maintaining open communications with all Software Engineers reporting to them and rotating assignments to ensure no one works long periods on what they consider unchallenging tasks.

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