UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
     
    COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM


                presents


 "People, Politics and Process: An Exploratory Study"


                   by

              Dr. Austen Rainer
        (University of Hertfordshire) 


          8 May 2002 (Wednesday)

          Lecture Theatre LC108
            Hatfield Campus
                3 - 4 pm 


 Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.


        EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO ATTEND!


Abstract:

We report on an exploratory investigation of the relationships between
people, politics and the software process. This investigation is a 
direct development of previous work that we have conducted in this area. 
The investigation consists of a qualitative analysis of transcriptions of 
15 group interviews from four telecommunications companies, a complementary 
quantitative analysis of words used in these transcriptions, and a partial 
validation of these two analyses using five additional data sets. We find 
that practitioners talk in general terms about the mental and behavioural 
states of other people. These states suggest that practitioners are aware 
of how to influence people: indeed, practitioners sometimes explicitly 
discuss how people are influenced. We also find that practitioners 
recognise different groups of people, and talk in terms of group ownership. 
We discuss goals as a characteristic common to people, political activity 
and process. We consider how this research improves our understanding of 
how software is actually developed. We also comment on directions for 
further research of this kind.

Colloquium Abstracts:
On-line: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq/