Is the glass half empty or half full? conducting empirical studies in industry (invited talk)

Building effective collaborations, scoping a research problem to produce results that will benefit the industry, and lacking access to data are often listed as barriers to conducting academic studies in industry. Despite these challenges, research that uses empirical approaches and that collaborates with industry is increasing; there are even conferences and journals dedicated to the cause. The software engineering research community aims to produce results that are valuable to practice through these endeavors. Yet, one key goal of this research seems to get lost as we try to sort through the challenges that such collaborations impose upon the work plan: Do the results of these studies really help us innovate and produce research outputs that others can use, build on, and replicate? Or are we becoming victims of the available empirical software engineering methods? In this presentation, I will give examples of how the results of empirical studies have helped shape research problems in which industry can more easily take part and even be engaged partners in the work.