FW-HTF-RL: Improving the Mental Well-being and Productivity of the Software Development Workforce of Tomorrow

今天，软件团队和组织可以创建前所未有的复杂性和规模的软件。此外，他们可以比以往任何时候都更有效、更高效地做到这一点。虽然有许多促成因素，但软件开发人员使用的工具功能的进步一直是主要的推动因素，特别是在跨距离和跨时区的大型团队协作方面。一方面，这代表着人类-技术伙伴关系的重大成功。然而，当这些工具的设计侧重于软件工程结果，而没有考虑这些工具如何影响开发人员的工作实践以及与团队成员的交互时，这些工具可能会对员工的福祉产生负面影响。设计糟糕的工具可能会减少学习、自我表达和与他人的交流；这反过来可能会对开发人员的心理健康和组织的长期成功产生负面影响。该项目为在高度协作、工具密集的工作环境中建立一种新型的人-技术伙伴关系奠定了基础；在这种伙伴关系中，工人的精神健康在工具及其支持的实践的设计中得到考虑。该项目的目标是证明，通过将心理健康作为仅次于生产力的主要设计考虑因素，有可能同时改善员工的心理健康和工作表现。该项目由三个部分组成。第一部分将对工作中的开发人员的观察性研究与访谈和调查相结合，以评估软件开发人员的心理健康状态，包括心理健康问题的性质和普遍性，这些问题如何影响他们自己和他们团队的工作，以及他们可能使用的任何现有应对策略的有效性。为了解决第一部分中确定的问题，第二部分涉及理论开发、行业小组和研究研讨会，以阐明工具设计的原则和相关的最佳实践，以支持生产力，同时促进心理健康。第三部分以这些原则和做法为基础，设计新的工具，并通过实验室实验和组织伙伴的实地试验来评估这些工具。在所有三个项目中利用自我决定理论的镜头，该项目的结果可以：(1)促进和影响围绕软件开发中的心理健康的讨论，特别是在提高意识、制定公司政策和劳动力培训方面，(2)形成项目原型之外的进一步的软件开发工具，以及(3)授权教师使用该项目开发的在线资源，将所学到的教训带给那些将成为未来的软件劳动力并面临精神健康挑战的学生。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。

Today, software teams and organizations can create software of a complexity and scale that is unprecedented. Moreover, they can do so more effectively and more efficiently than ever before. While there are many contributing factors, the advances in the capabilities of the tools that software developers use have been a principal enabler, particularly in terms of collaborating in large teams across distances and time zones. On the one hand, this represents a major human-technology partnership success. However, these tools may have negative consequences for worker well-being when their design focuses on software engineering outcomes without considering how the tools affect developers' work practices and interactions with teammates. Badly designed tools can reduce learning, self-expression, and communication with others; this may in turn negatively impact developers' mental well-being and the long term success of the organization. This project creates the foundations for a new kind of human-technology partnership in highly collaborative, tool-intensive work environments; a partnership in which workers' mental well-being is considered in the design of tools and the practices they support. The goal is to demonstrate that, by making mental well-being a primary design concern next to productivity, it is possible to improve both worker mental well-being and work performance.The project consists of three parts. The first part combines observational studies of developers at work with interviews and surveys to assess the state of mental well-being among software developers in terms of the nature and prevalence of mental well-being issues, how these issues impact their own and their team's work, and the effectiveness of any existing coping strategies they may use. To address the issues identified in the first part, the second part involves theory development, industry panels, and research workshops to articulate principles for tool design and associated best practices that support productivity while promoting mental well-being. The third part builds on these principles and practices to design novel tools and assess those tools through laboratory experiments and field trials at organizational partners. Leveraging the lens of self-determination theory across all three thrusts, the results from the project can: (1) contribute to and effect discussions around mental well-being in software development, especially in terms of raising awareness, setting corporate policy, and workforce training, (2) shape further software development tools beyond the ones the project prototypes, and (3) empower instructors to use online resource the project develops to bring the lessons learned to students who will form the future software workforce and face challenges to their mental well-being.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.