PhD
My doctoral thesis, titled “Investigating the Influence of Personality and Motivation in Requirements Engineering (RE)-related Activities” yielded several significant outcomes for both academia and industry, including a systematic literature review (SLR), a practical framework, a prototype Jira plugin and a set of strategies & guidelines to handle the impact of personality and motivation on RE, which was published in IEEE TSE, ACM TOSEM and EMSE journals as well as presented at conferences such as COMPSAC 2023, FSE 2022 and ACSW 2021.
I completed my PhD under the supervision of Professor John Grundy, Associate Professor Rashina Hoda and Dr Ingo Mueller, at the HumaniSE lab, Faculty of IT, Monash University, Australia (2019-2023) and my thesis has been rated as exceptional and excellent by the thesis examiners. Following are summaries of key research contributions of my PhD.
THE EFFECTS OF HUMAN ASPECTS ON THE REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING PROCESS: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW
Objective: To review the work done to date in identifying the key effects of human aspects in requirements engineering (RE).
Method: Extracted data from 74 high-quality research papers (primary studies) aligned with the standard Kitchenham and Charters’ guidelines
Key Findings/ Contributions:
- A single source of collated information on research into human aspects impact on requirements engineering (RE) -effects of communication have been considered in many studies of RE and aspects such as personality, motivation and gender have been explored in more general SE studies including RE.
- A guidance for IT professionals, software teams and stakeholders, as well as academic and industry researchers who want to better understand the impact of diverse human aspects on the RE process -investigated human aspects were identified and categorised into ‘individual’ , ‘technical’ and ‘team’ in a software engineering (SE) context.
- A set of recommendations for future research into the impact of human aspects on RE
This research work has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) Journal [Paper]
SOFTWARE PRACTITIONERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE IMPACT OF HUMAN ASPECTS ON REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING (RE)
Objective: To identify the perspectives of software practitioners on the impact of human aspects on RE-related activities
Method: Online survey (via Qualtrics) with 111 software practitioners globally. Followed the non-probabilistic purposive sampling technique. Use da mixed-method approach for the data analysis (descriptive statistics and socio-technical grounded theory).
Key Findings/ Contributions:
- The perspectives of software practitioners involved in RE on the importance of various human aspects when they are involved in RE – Motivation, Domain Knowledge, Attitude, Communication skills, and Personality are highly important human aspects in RE
- A set of key factors that motivate individuals when involved in RE and their impact on achieving good RE/SE outcomes – client engagement, culture, satisfaction and outcomes are key motivators for individuals when involved in RE and their impact
- A set of key factors that are helpful in measuring performance and impact less effectiveness when involved in RE – workload, unclear requirements and constant requirement changes are key factors that make practitioners less effective when involved in RE
This research work has been published in in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) journal [Paper] and presented at FSE 2022 – Journal first track.
THE IMPACT OF PERSONALITY ON REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING (RE)
Objective: Obtain an in-depth understanding of personalities influence RE
Method: A mixed-method approach – 50 IPIP-NEO 120 Personality and 15 in-depth interviews of software practitioners who are mainly involved in RE-related activities. The data analysis was done using statistical analysis and socio-technical grounded theory.
Key Findings/ Contributions:
- A guide for software professionals, academic and industry researchers who want to better understand the impact of personality on RE-related activities (both positive and negative impacts)
- A set of strategies that can be used to address the negative impacts of personality on RE-related activities
- Identification of significant personality traits of software practitioners who are predominantly involved in RE-related activities, along with a set of useful personality characteristics when involved in RE – through personality test analysis – majority of the practitioners have a high score on agreeableness and conscientiousness traits and an average score on extraversion and neuroticism traits
This research work has been published in Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) journal [Paper].
MOTIVE-METIRCS: A JIRA PLUG-IN FOR PERSONALITY, MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE TRACKING
Objective: To explore and verify the potential of a tool integrating personality and motivation along with practitioners’ performance and satisfaction to improve RE-related activities
Method: A prototype was developed via rapid prototyping as a plug-in to the popular project management application, Jira. The initial prototype was evaluated with software development teams comprising students to assess its usefulness and identify key areas for improvement.
Key Findings/ Contributions:
- A software prototype that helps to capture and monitor human aspects of personality and motivation of software practitioners, along with their satisfaction and performance when they are involved in RE-related allocated tasks, focusing on improving RE and the overall software development process
- Identified the effectiveness, usefulness and drawbacks of the prototype application and possible future work directions/ improvements via user evaluation
This research work has been accepted and presented at the 6th IEEE International Workshop on Secure Digital Identity Management workshop of the IEEE International Conference on Computers, Software, and Applications (COMPSAC) Conference 2023 [Paper]
