WhatMotivatesSoftwarePractitioners
From SPA Wiki
The slides used for the presentation are available here File:WhatMotivatesSoftwarePractitioners1.ppt
The session was divided roughly into three parts. During the first part, groups discussed motivation in general. During the second part we looked at key elements of motivation and uncovered attendees’ attitudes to motivation. This was based on the Repertory Grid Technique. The third section involved reporting and discussing results of a systematic literature review in this area conducted during 2006 and funded by EPSRC. Papers from this project are available from the project website 1.
We started by asking people to re-locate in role groups and we had two developer groups, one mentor/coach group, one project management group and one ‘other’ group (e.g. consultants, team leads, technical leads).
We then posed the groups 4 questions for discussion. These questions were
Question 1: What aspects of your job do you get most satisfaction from? Question 2: What are the features of a project that make you stay in your job? Question 3: What factors keep you in software engineering? Question 4: What makes developing software worthwhile to you?
The following is a transcription of the flip charts that each group presented. Some of the groups answered the questions in a systematic fashion and some used them as a basis for a general discussion on motivation.
Developers (group 1)
• Deliver quality solutions
• Learn new stuff
• Work with like-minded people (team with customers)
• Variety
• Solve complex problems
• Within comfort zone (?)
• Control destiny
• Making a difference
Developers (group 2)
• Job well done - right first time
• Solving hard stuff
• Doing something original
• Customer satisfaction
• Being in the flow - the craft
• Refactoring - messy ideas becoming clearer - crystallising - deleting code
• System in use
• Learning new stuff
• Realisation of mad ideas
• Concrete programs - momentum
• ‘a-ha’ moments
Why stay?
• Inertia
• Autonomy - responsibility
• Team work - enthusiastic co-workers (but not too much)
• Focus
• Opportunity to prove myself
• Chance to make things better
Project Managers
Aspects you get satisfaction from?
• Success - technical and business/user
• ‘doing the right thing’
• helping improve the working life of the team
What keeps you in the job?
• Making a positive difference
Keeps you in software?
• Challenge
• Learning
• Intelligent and creative people
Developing software worthwhile?
• Software as human creativity
Mentor/coach
What aspects of your job do you get most satisfaction from?
• Helping a team to learn - ‘lightbulb moment’
• setting up a good working environment
What are the features of a project that make you stay in your job?
• Challenge
• Fun!
• Money/reward
What factors keep you in software engineering?
• ‘geek coolness value’
• People
• Creativity
What makes developing software worthwhile to you?
• Creativity
• Satisfaction
Others
What aspects of your job do you get most satisfaction from? And What are the features of a project that make you stay in your job?
• Variety
• Roles
• Learning
• Seeing other people learn
• Not being ‘stuck’ on one project - having an influence over several projects
• Collaboration with others
What factors keep you in software engineering?
• ‘I’m good at it’
• Portability of skills
• Fast moving
The middle part of the session involved uncovering attendees’ attitudes to motivation aspects (such as the ones above). This information will be analysed in more detail and reported at a later stage.
The last section involved the discussion of current literature and ‘accepted wisdom’ in the field. This was based on the results of a one-year project funded by EPSRC which ran during 2006. Various papers describing our approach and our results have been produced and these are all available from our project website 1.
