The ramp-up problem in software projects: a case study of how software immigrants naturalize
Susan Elliott Sim, Richard C. Holt · 1998
Joining a software development team is like moving to a new country to start employment; the immigrant has a lot to learn about the job, the local customs, and sometimes a new language. In an exploratory case study, we interviewed four software immigrants, in order to characterize their naturalization process. Seven patterns in four major categories were found. In this paper, these patterns are substantiated, and their implications discussed. The lessons learned from this study can be applied equally to improving the naturalization process, and to the formulation of further research questions. KEYWORDS empirical study, software maintenance, new employees, process 1. INTRODUCTION The title of Brooks' book, The Mythical Man-Month, neatly sums up a software team management concept: adding personnel to a project actually decreases productivity in the short term due to the start-up costs of new team members.[3, 4] Despite this difficulty, it is often necessary to add new employees to r...