Collaboration, Information Seeking and Communication: An Observational Study of Software Developers' Work Practices
Open accessAbstract
Different aspects defining the nature of software engineering work have been analyzed by empirical studies conducted in the last 30 years. However, in recent years, many changes have occurred in the context of software development that impact the way people collaborate, communicate with each other, manage the development process and search for information to create solutions and solve problems. For instance, the generalized adoption of asynchronous and synchronous communication technologies as well as the adoption of quality models to evaluate the work being conducted are some aspects that define modern software development scenarios. Despite this new context, much of the research in the collaborative aspects of software design is based on research that does not reflect these new work environments. Thus, a more up-to-date understanding of the nature of software engineering work with regards to collaboration, information seeking and communication is necessary. The goal of this paper is to present findings of an observational study to understand those aspects. We found that our informants spend 45% of their time collaborating with their colleagues; information seeking consumes 31,90% of developers' time; and low usage of software process tools is observed (9,35%). Our results also indicate a low usage of e-mail as a communication tool (∼1% of the total time spent on collaborative activities), and software developers, of their total time on communication efforts, spending 15% of it looking for information, that helps them to be aware of their colleagues' work, share knowledge, and manage dependencies between their activities. Our results can be used to inform the design of collaborative software development tools as well as to improve team management practices.
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The time developers spend seeking information to support task completion is a significant contributor to, or deterrent from, developer productivity.
“A significant contributor to, or deterrent from, developer productivity is the time they spend seeking information to support the completion of their tasks [19,31].”
From The Evolution of Information Seeking in Software Development: Understanding the Role and Impact of AI Assistants (2025) · cites this paper as [19]
The Discussion (Figure 5; page not provided) reports substantial time spent seeking information to coordinate work, and the Introduction links communication and coordination generally to productivity. The paper does not establish that time spent seeking information is itself a significant contributor to, or deterrent from, developer productivity. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredNon-development work can account for 39 percent up to 91 percent of the time developers spend at work.
“which can account for 39 percent up to 91 percent of the time developers spend at work [1], [3], [19], [20], [21].”
From Detecting Developers' Task Switches and Types (2022) · cites this paper as [19]
Section 4.1 reports that collaborative activities took about 45% of observed developers’ time, supporting the broader point that substantial work time was spent outside individual activities such as coding. It does not classify all collaborative work as non-development work or report the claimed 39%–91% range. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Gonçalves, M. K., González, V. M., & de Souza, L. R. B.
- Affiliations
- Universidade Federal do Pará (BR)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Venue
- Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz
- Publisher
- Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz
- Published
- 2011
- OpenAlex
- W2188648788
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 1.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- zenodo.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- TUGraz OPEN Library (Graz University of Technology)
- Funders
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
- Fundação Amazônia Paraense de Amparo à Pesquisa (003/2008)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Team Dynamics and Performance
- Keywords
- collaboration, information seeking, communication, asynchronous communication, synchronous communication, knowledge sharing, team management
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