A survey on project factors that motivate Finnish software engineers

Previous studies suggest that motivation is a critical factor in developer productivity and project outcome, i.e., software project failures are significantly associated with low motivation of software teams. Surveys with software engineers also indicate that culture can affect software development team motivation through differences in developers' motivational factors. In this study, we conduct a survey with 15 Finnish software engineers and 21 non-Finnish software engineers who live in Finland to investigate 1) the relationship between team motivation and project outcome, and 2) the factors that motivate Finnish software engineers. We compare the motivational factors found from the Finnish data with those identified in prior research with developers from four different countries. An analysis of the data from our 36 subjects indicates that project outcome is not associated with team motivation in Finland though this result contradicts prior research. There is a single motivational factor, “team work” that appears to be culturally independent. Unique team motivational factors for Finnish software engineers are found to be “the authority of project manager” and “the vision of project manager”. Our results indicate that cultural differences affect team motivation and that project managers need to consider these when working in a global environment.

[1]  Steve McConnell.  Avoiding Classic Mistakes , 1996, IEEE Softw..

[2]  Morteza Shokri-Ghasabeh,et al.  Generic Project Success and Project Management Success Criteria and Factors: Literature Review and Survey , 2009 .

[3]  Helen Sharp,et al.  Models of motivation in software engineering , 2009, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[4]  Lili Marziana Abdullah,et al.  Exploratory case study research: Outsourced project failure , 2012, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[5]  Robert L. Glass,et al.  Evolving a new theory of project success , 1999, Commun. ACM.

[6]  Alan Agresti,et al.  Categorical Data Analysis , 1991, International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science.

[7]  Alfredo Candia-Véjar,et al.  The optimization of success probability for software projects using genetic algorithms , 2011, J. Syst. Softw..

[8]  Aileen Cater-Steel,et al.  The impact of national culture on software engineering practices , 2008 .

[9]  Capers Jones,et al.  Why software fails , 1996 .

[10]  June M. Verner,et al.  State of the practice: An exploratory analysis of schedule estimation and software project success prediction , 2007, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[11]  Magne Jørgensen,et al.  How large are software cost overruns? A review of the 1994 CHAOS report , 2006, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[12]  June M. Verner,et al.  Software project managers and project success: An exploratory study , 2006, J. Syst. Softw..

[13]  David P. Darcy,et al.  Exploring Individual Characteristics and Programming Performance: Implications for Programmer Selection , 2005, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[14]  June M. Verner,et al.  Stakeholder dissonance: disagreements on project outcome and its impact on team motivation across three countries , 2010, SIGMIS-CPR '10.

[15]  F. R. Tanner,et al.  On motivating engineers , 2003, IEMC '03 Proceedings. Managing Technologically Driven Organizations: The Human Side of Innovation and Change.

[16]  Janice M. Burn,et al.  Managing IT professionals in a global environment , 1995, CPRS.

[17]  June M. Verner,et al.  In-house software development: what project management practices lead to success? , 2005, IEEE Software.

[18]  Barbara A. Kitchenham,et al.  Evaluating logistic regression models to estimate software project outcomes , 2010, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[19]  Walter Fernandez,et al.  Success in IT projects: A matter of definition? , 2008 .

[20]  R.N. Charette,et al.  Why software fails [software failure] , 2005, IEEE Spectrum.

[21]  Akira Ishikawa,et al.  Comparing motivation of Japanese computer personnel versus these of the United States , 1995, Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[22]  Philip E. T. Lewis,et al.  Research Methods for Business Students (5th edn) , 2007 .

[23]  Erling S. Andersen.  "Never the twain shall meet": exploring the differences between Japanese and Norwegian IS professionals , 2002, SIGCPR '02.

[24]  Omar E. M. Khalil,et al.  What motivates Egyptian IS managers and personnel: some preliminary results , 1997, SIGCPR '97.

[25]  Richard Messnarz,et al.  The Impact of National Cultural Factors on the Effectiveness of Process Improvement Methods: The Third Dimension , 2002 .

[26]  Tom DeMarco,et al.  Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams , 1987 .

[27]  Srinivasan V. Rao,et al.  An effort towards identifying occupational culture among information systems professionals , 2006, SIGMIS CPR '06.

[28]  Erran Carmel,et al.  Global software teams: collaborating across borders and time zones , 1999 .

[29]  Philip E. T. Lewis,et al.  Research Methods for Business Students , 2006 .

[30]  Helen Sharp,et al.  Motivation in Software Engineering: A systematic literature review , 2008, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[31]  Kurt R. Linberg.  Software developer perceptions about software project failure: a case study , 1999, J. Syst. Softw..

[32]  Luiz Fernando Capretz.  Personality types in software engineering , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[33]  Muhammad Ali Babar,et al.  Factors that motivate software engineering teams: A four country empirical study , 2014, J. Syst. Softw..

[34]  Jayesh Prasad,et al.  Beyond stereotypes of IT professionals: implications for IT HR practices , 2006, CACM.

[35]  June M. Verner,et al.  Why did your project fail? , 2009, Commun. ACM.

[36]  Ritu Agarwal,et al.  Enduring practices for managing IT professionals , 2002, CACM.

[37]  Khaled El Emam,et al.  A Replicated Survey of IT Software Project Failures , 2008, IEEE Software.

[38]  Georgios A. Dafoulas,et al.  Investigating Cultural Differences in Virtual Software Teams , 2002, Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Dev. Ctries..

[39]  D. C. Smith,et al.  Antecedents of turnover intention and actual turnover among information systems personnel in South Africa , 2006, SIGMIS CPR '06.

[40]  Barry W. Boehm,et al.  Software Engineering Economics , 1993, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[41]  C. Neves.  Categorical data analysis, third edition , 2014 .

[42]  Rafael Prikladnicki,et al.  Global software development in practice lessons learned , 2003, Softw. Process. Improv. Pract..