The Role of the Retrospective Meetings in Detecting, Refactoring and Monitoring Community Smells
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Background. Retrospective meetings play a vital role in agile development by facilitating team reflection on past work to enhance effectiveness. These meetings address various social aspects, including team dynamics, individual performance, processes, and technologies, ultimately leading to actions for improvement. Despite their importance, limited research has explored how these meetings handle forms of social debt, particularly Community Smells – recurring dysfunctional patterns in team dynamics, such as poor communication or isolated work practices. Goal. This study seeks to understand how retrospective meetings address a few core Community Smells, examining whether these meetings help identify smells, facilitate the formulation of refactoring strategies, support the monitoring of refactoring actions, and contribute to preventing the most prominent Community Smells. Method. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 practitioners from diverse organizations who regularly participate in retrospective meetings. Interviewees shared their experiences with retrospectives, the challenges discussed, and subsequent improvement actions. The study focused on the four most cited Community Smells in the literature – Lone Wolf, Organizational Silo, Radio Silence, and Black Cloud. Data was analyzed iteratively through a combination of priori coding to examine Community Smells and inductive open coding inspired by Grounded Theory. Findings. The findings indicate that retrospective meetings indeed facilitate the identification of core Community Smells. However, while strategies for refactoring are often formulated, their implementation and monitoring remain inconsistent. Additionally, an emphasis on positive aspects during these meetings may help in preventing Community Smells. Conclusion. This study offers valuable insights for practitioners and researchers, highlighting the importance of addressing social debt in software development within agile practices.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Sun 27 AprDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
11:00 - 12:30 | Software Teams (Agile, Teamwork and Collaboration) SessionResearch Track at 210 Chair(s): Klaas-Jan Stol Lero; University College Cork; SINTEF Digital | ||
11:00 10mTalk | Towards a Taxonomy for Autonomy in Large-Scale Agile Software Development Research Track Casper Lassenius Aalto University, Finland and Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Norway, Torgeir Dingsøyr Norwegian University of Science and Technology and SimulaMet | ||
11:10 10mTalk | Exploring Retrospective Meeting Practices and the Use of Data in Agile Teams Research Track Alessandra Maciel Paz Milani University of Victoria, Margaret-Anne Storey University of Victoria, Vivek Katial Multitudes, Lauren Peate Multitudes Pre-print | ||
11:20 15mTalk | The Role of the Retrospective Meetings in Detecting, Refactoring and Monitoring Community Smells Research Track Carlos Dantas Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte, Tiago Massoni Federal University of Campina Grande, Camila Sarmento Federal Institute of Piauí, Rayana Rocha Federal University of Campina Grande, Danielly Gualberto Federal University of Campina Grande Pre-print | ||
11:35 15mTalk | Hybrid Work in Agile Software Development: Recurring Meetings Research Track Emily Laue Christensen IT University of Copenhagen, Maria Paasivaara LUT University, Finland & Aalto University, Finland, Iflaah Salman Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT) | ||
11:50 15mTalk | A Cluster-based Approach for Emotion Recognition in Software Development Research Track Daniela Grassi University of Bari, Filippo Lanubile University of Bari, Alberta Motca-Schnabel University of Bari, Nicole Novielli University of Bari | ||
12:05 15mTalk | Towards Emotionally Intelligent Software Engineers: Understanding Students' Self Perceptions After a Cooperative Learning Experience Research Track Allysson Allex Araújo Federal University of Cariri, Marcos Kalinowski Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Matheus Paixao State University of Ceará, Daniel Graziotin University of Hohenheim |