To talk or not to talk: factors that influence communication around changesets

Building tools to help software developers communicate effectively requires a deep understanding of their communication dynamics. To date we do not have good comprehension of why developers talk to each other as a result of some events in the life of their projects, and not of others. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult to design useful communication models and support systems. In this paper, we narrow down the study of communication behaviour to focus on interactions that occur as a result of a particular kind of project event: the submission of a changeset to the project repository. In a case study with the IBM® Rational® Team Concert™ development team we investigate which factors influence developers to request information about a changeset to their product. We identify several such factors, including the development mode in which the team is operating, the background and recent performance of the author of the changeset, and the risk that the changeset poses to the stability of the product. Incorporating these factors into recommender systems may lead to improvements in their performance.