ProxiScientiaToward Real-Time Visualization ofTask and Developer Dependencies

in Collaborating Software Development Teams

Arber Borici • K. Blincoe • A. Schröter • G. Valetto • D. Damian

July 18, 2012IBM Ottawa

Introduction and Motivation

● Coordination requirements (CRs) emerge between interdependent developers

● Efficient coordination is hard

● Developers are not always aware of coordination needs

New CR conceptualization

Coordination requirement

Developer A Developer B

Assigned to Task 1

Dev B, Task 2Working Set

Dev A, Task 1Working Set

Assigned to Task 2

Intersection

● Starting point: intersection between working sets as work progresses

● Consider the type of actions each developer carries out on the artifacts (action weight)

● Consider how much each developer has “focused” on the intersection artifacts (# of events)

● End result: proximity – a quantitative measure of the

strength of the need to coordinate

ProxiScientia

● Introducing ProxiScientia

● Intent: A tool that visualizes CRs in real-time making CRs actionable

● ProxiScientia /`prɒksiˌʃentiə/– portmanteau of Proximity + Scientia (Latin

for knowledge / awareness)

Information

● Based on the Proximity algorithm● Extracts context data based on developer IDE

interaction (selection + edit actions)– Various artifact granularity levels– file, class, class element

● Continuously computes Proximity between developer pairs

● Provides ego-centric visualization of pairwise CRs as they form and evolve

Present Implementation

Developer-centric Task-centric

●Currently, two graphical views are supported:

Presentation

Present Implementation

User-centric view

Interaction

● Updates context information automatically

● Disruptive interruption threat?– There is a tradeoff: Awareness vs. Disruption– We propose a “push and pull” strategy

Push and Pull

● Push mode:– Present developers with timely CR awareness

through visualizations, e.g. our radar graphs

● Pull mode:– Enable users to interact with visualizations to

obtain additional information

Example (current visualization)

Example

● By hovering over a CR information about the involved WIs is displayed

Example

● By clicking on a WI, additional WI metadata (e.g. description) is displayed

Example

• When clicking over a CR – metadata retrieved from the SW artifacts (e.g. tags) are displayed

HeatMap presentation

● Definition – A spatial representation of individual working sets

● “Heat” yielded is proportional to the proximity score computed between a concurrent activity and a user’s working set

● The intensity of the “Heat” will be based on the strength of working set intersections

Example

Alice Bob

Charles

Conclusions● ProxiScientia

– Recognizes CRs as they emerge

– Makes CRs actionable

● Discussion topics– Peripheral awareness tool

● Not disruptive

– Future feature ideas● Push and Pull strategy / interactivity● Heat maps: still conceptual – to be implemented● Implicit coordination support

Questions

Contact information:

Arber Borici: borici@uvic.ca