Collaborative Research: SHF: Small: Distributed Fragmented Software Design Meetings

虽然许多软件开发团队已经在以分布式方式运作，但新冠肺炎已经导致整个科技行业向远程工作的巨变。这种转变似乎是长期的：许多组织正在计划或已经决定将混合工作或完全在家工作作为永久选择。在这些环境中，设计仍然一如既往地重要。已经出现的一种常见做法是分散的零散的软件设计会议。这些会议定期举行，并在线进行，聚集了一个核心团队来解决日常设计问题。不幸的是，不连续和缺乏适当的工具支持导致会议不能像它们可能和应该的那样有效和高效，出现了许多不同的问题，对所产生的软件的质量和生产时间表产生了负面影响。通过研究参与分布式、零散的软件设计会议的几个团队，本研究项目将记录在分布式、零散的软件设计会议中遇到的问题以及这些问题对项目的影响。然后，它将设计、实施、评估并提供新的工具和实践来克服这些问题。最后，它将调整所学到的工具和课程以供课堂使用，使学生为他们必须从事混合和远程软件设计的未来职业生涯做好更好的准备。贯穿整个项目的指导概念将是重要的设计位(IDB)，即从过去的设计会议中摘录的简短信息，这些信息可能与未来的设计会议相关。开发计划署将作为分析要研究的设计会议的主要视角，并作为计划中的新工具的支助组织单位。这项研究结合了视频分析、访谈、调查、工具设计和评估，将揭示当前的实践、优势、问题和改进机会，并创建通过轻量级捕获和检索IDB来支持分布式、分散的软件设计会议的工具。所学到的洞察力将使大大小小的组织能够评估他们的实践并实施改进；任何软件组织都可以采用新的开源工具来支持他们的分布式、零散的软件设计会议；课堂干预将可以整合到典型的软件工程基础课程中，就像在几乎任何计算程序中教授的那样。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While many software development teams were already operating in a distributed manner, COVID-19 has caused a seismic shift to remote work across the entire tech industry. This shift appears to be long-term: many organizations are planning or have already decided to make hybrid work or full work-from-home a permanent option. Design remains as important as ever in these settings. A common practice that has emerged is distributed fragmented software design meetings. These meetings, conducted on a regular schedule and online, bring together a core team to address day-to-day design issues. Unfortunately, the discontinuity and lack of proper tool support cause the meetings not to be as effective and efficient as they could and should be, with many varied issues arising that negatively affect the quality of the resulting software and the schedule by which it is being produced. By studying several teams engaged in distributed, fragmented softwaredesign meetings, this research project will document the issues encountered in distributed, fragmented software design meetings and the impact these issues have on the project. It will then design, implement,evaluate, and make available new tools and practices to overcome the issues. Finally, it will adapt the tools and lessons learned for use in the classroom, so students become better prepared for future careers in which they must engage in hybrid and remote software design.A guiding concept throughout the project will be important design bits (IDBs), short excerpts from past design meetings that capture information that may be relevant to future design meetings. IDBs will serve as the primary lens for analyzing the design meetings to be studied and as the organizing unit of support in the planned novel tools. Combining video analysis, interviews, surveys, tool design, and assessment, the research will uncover current practices, strengths, issues, and opportunities for improvement, as well as create tools that support distributed, fragmented software design meetings through lightweight capture and retrieval of IDBs. The insights learned will enable organizations large and small to evaluate their practices and implement improvements; the novel open-sourced tools will be adoptable by any software organization to support their distributed, fragmented software design meetings; and the classroom interventions will be integratable in typical software engineering capstone courses as taught in nearly any computing program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.