A Novel, Tool‐Supported Catalog of Community Smell Symptoms
Antonio Della Porta, Stefano Lambiase, Gemma Catolino, Filomena Ferrucci, Fabio Palomba · Journal of Software Evolution and Process · 2025
ABSTRACT Software development is a multifaceted endeavor, requiring a profound grasp of both social dynamics and technical intricacies. Poor collaboration often leads to the accumulation of social debt , manifesting as unforeseen project costs due to sub‐optimal team interactions. Community smells have emerged as indicators of these socio‐technical inefficiencies and potential social debt. While previous research has focused on automated detection of community smells through analyzing developer communication patterns, our study offers a complementary approach. We emphasize the critical role of project managers in assessing socio‐technical dynamics and propose a novel, tool‐supported catalog of symptoms. This catalog can be used for manual inspections to identify early signs of community smells at the individual level, allowing managers to address issues before they escalate. Using a mixed‐method design that leveraged an existing literature review and a user survey, we cataloged symptoms related to four community smell types. Additionally, we developed TOAST, a tool that operationalizes this catalog, and assessed its usability and practical usefulness through an experiment involving project managers. The study showed that even participants unfamiliar with the term “community smells” were able to interpret the tool's output, reflect on team dynamics, and recognize problematic behavioral patterns when supported by structured symptom‐based information. The paper concludes by shedding light on the potential impact of our work and its contribution to advancing the detection and analysis of community smells.