Lay down on the couch please It’s time for test therapy Kai Petersen

Human factors Looking at research there exist 10 times more research on technology and processes compared to human factors

Human factors Looking at research there exist 10 times more research on technology and processes compared to human factors Question: What comes to mind when you hear the word “Human Factors”? State a few keywords! Question: What comes to mind when you hear the word “Human Factors”? State a few keywords!

Human factors – some keywords from cognitive science/behavioral economics, psychology Need theory Organizational commitment Positive psychology Risk taking Self control Self discipline Self esteem Social value orientation Stress Stereotypes Personality Work life balance Loyalty Alienation Communication Conformity Group composition Decision making Group dynamics Group polarization Leadership Organizational climateOrganizational culture Organizational learning Emotion Per Lenberg, Robert Feldt, Lars Göran Wallgren: Behavioral software engineering: A definition and systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and Software 107: (2015)

What is there to understand?

Human factors – some keywords from cognitive science/behavioral economics, psychology Need theory Organizational commitment Positive psychology Risk taking Self control Self discipline Self esteem Social value orientation Stress Stereotypes Personality Work life balance Loyalty Alienation Communication Conformity Group composition Decision making Group dynamics Group polarization Leadership Organizational climateOrganizational culture Organizational learning Per Lenberg, Robert Feldt, Lars Göran Wallgren: Behavioral software engineering: A definition and systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and Software 107: (2015) Emotion

Personality Persons characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts and feelings Evaluate the link between personality traits and work preferences

Personality Method – Questionnaire of 279 M.Sc. Level students and 47 SE professionals (earlier study) – Utilized statistical analysis (cluster analysis) Observed variables “human factors” – Five factor model (personality) – Emotional intelligence (ability to use, understand and manage emotions) – Self-compassion Observed variables “Work preferences” – Plan vs. ad-hoc – Workload (one thing at a time vs. multiple) – Work alone vs. in a team – Responsibility with respect to the development process (all, parts, no experience) – Project duration – Technical vs. softer parts – Prioritizing tasks yourself vs. your boss

Personality indicator used Each model has pros and cons, in particular there are debates (e.g. the five factor model does not capture the complete personality sphere), misses e.g. manipulativeness, honesty, etc. Openness to experience 1.I have a rich vocabulary 2.I have a vivid imagination 3.I have excellent ideas 4.I am quick to understand things 5.I use difficult words 6.I am full of ideas 7.I am not interested in abstractions 8.I do not have a good imagination 9.I have a difficulty understanding abstract ideas

Personality - Results Two clusters (red and blue) were identified, with the red cluster having more intense personalities

Personality – Results

Students with more intense personalities – Prefer to work in a team – Prefer to be responsible for the overall development process – Prefer to work with softer parts of the development project Relationship between personalities and work preferences are visible Personality – Results (2/2) Key findings: Study validates assumptions (i.e. also gives confidence in instruments) Illustrates that personalities are important to consider (and is here only focused on a very limited scope) Interesting from a testing perspective: What personalities make the best testers? What testing approach (exploratory, scripted, execution, design) does one prefer? Key findings: Study validates assumptions (i.e. also gives confidence in instruments) Illustrates that personalities are important to consider (and is here only focused on a very limited scope) Interesting from a testing perspective: What personalities make the best testers? What testing approach (exploratory, scripted, execution, design) does one prefer?

Emotion State of mind raised by external stimuli and directed towards the stimulus by which they are raised (joy, fear, surprise) Goal

Emotion Method – Subjects: 4 software developers, 4 students – Work on own software projects (familiar environments) – Data collection – survey instrument on a screen, self- assessment manikan (SAM) – Interviews and annotation of events during interview – Observed variables “human factors” Valence (pleasure) – attractiveness of an event, object, or situation Arousal – intensiveness of the emotional activation (vigor, energy vs. fatigue and tiredness) Dominance – change in the sensation of control of a situation

Emotion Measurement calm excited unhappy happy controlledin-control

Emotion Results

Emotions - results Hypotheses tests showed that there is significant evidence that: – The real-time valence affective state is positively correlated with their self-assessed productivity. – The real-time dominance affective state is positively correlated to their self-assessed productivity. – Impact of arousal could not be determined

Stress/time-pressure Goal – Understand the effect of moderate time pressure on task performance (requirements review and test case development) and perceived workload

Stress/time-pressure Method – Controlled experiment with 54 subjects inspecting two systems – Treatment: time pressure vs. non time pressure Time pressure generated through incentives (= the faster you perform, benefits – credits – are given) – Observed “Human factors” Perceived workload (NASA Task-load Index) – Observed development performance measures Effectiveness (no. of defects detected during requirements review while developing test cases, test case score based on correctly identified input and output variables, and created equivalence classes) Efficiency (mean number of defects per hour)

Stress/time-pressure

Results Effectiveness: could not reject null-hypotheses that there is no difference (left two figures), also no negative effects could be observed. Efficiency: significant difference

Stress/time-pressure Results Workload: No statistical significant evidence that time pressure affects motivation, frustration or perceived performance (note: moderate time pressure, limited amount of time, well specified task)

What we know overall so far… Top studied concepts are: – personality personality diversity strong predictor of success personality diversity positively influences communication quality extraversion correlates positively with the quality of the developed software – communication self-efficacy has a positive effect on the intention to share knowledge – job satisfaction level of job satisfaction and cohesion dropped the greater the level of conflict group composition and climate have an effect on software development team performance

Road ahead To truly understand we need to apply psychological measurements to understand impact Impact not just means that there is an effect, but also how large the effect is Need to study group behavior (e.g. a nice example is group polarization – not studied at all but highly relevant)

Example group polarization Group polarization – If a group shares opinions (i.e. is tilted in a certain direction), and discuss/decide in a group, the decision ends up on the extreme spectrum – For example, studied in law – Interesting for decision making in SE example: Estimation