Thrashing, tolerating and compromising in software development

Abstract

Software engineering research into error commonly examines how developers pass judgement: to isolate faults, establish their causes and remove them. By contrast this research examines how developers experience and learn from things that go wrong. This paper presents an analysis of retrospective accounts of software development gathered from a single organisation. The report includes ndings of how work is conducted in this organisation, and three themes that have emerged in analysis are discussed: thrashing, tolerating and compromising. Finally, limitations and implications for future research are given.