Expertise browser: a quantitative approach to identifying expertise

ABSTRACT

Finding relevant expertise is a critical need in collaborative software engineering, particularly in geographically distributed developments. We introduce a tool that uses data from change management systems to locate people with desired expertise. It uses a quantification of experience, and presents evidence to validate this quantification as a measure of expertise. The tool enables developers, for example, easily to distinguish someone who has worked only briefly in a particular area of the code from someone who has more extensive experience, and to locate people with broad expertise throughout large parts of the product, such as module or even subsystems. In addition, it allows a user to discover expertise profiles for individuals or organizations. Data from a deployment of the tool in a large software development organization shows that newer, remote sites tend to use the tool for expertise location more frequently. Larger, more established sites used the tool to find expertise profiles for people or organizations. We conclude by describing extensions that provide continuous awareness of ongoing work and an interactive, quantitative resume.

REFERENCES

• 1: Mark S. Ackerman , Christine Halverson, Considering an organization's memory, Proceedings of the 1998 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.39-48, November 14-18, 1998, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/289444.289461]
• 2: Allen, T. J., Managing the Flow of Technology. 1977, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• 3: Carmel, E., Global Software Teams. 1999, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• 4: Cedeqvist, P. et al, CVS Manual. May be fond on: http://www.cvshome.org/CVS/.
• 5: Tom DeMarco , Timothy Lister, Peopleware: productive projects and teams, Dorset House Publishing Co., Inc., New York, NY, 1987
• 6: Rebecca E. Grinter , James D. Herbsleb , Dewayne E. Perry, The geography of coordination: dealing with distance in R&D work, Proceedings of the international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work, p.306-315, November 14-17, 1999, Phoenix, Arizona, United States [doi>10.1145/320297.320333]
• 7: Graves, T. and Mockus, A. Identifying productivity drivers by modeling work units using partial data. Technometrics, 43(2):168-179, May 2001.
• 8: James D. Herbsleb , Rebecca E. Grinter, Splitting the organization and integrating the code: Conway's law revisited, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.85-95, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/302405.302455]
• 9: James D. Herbsleb , Audris Mockus , Thomas A. Finholt , Rebecca E. Grinter, An empirical study of global software development: distance and speed, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering, p.81-90, May 12-19, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 10: James D. Herbsleb , Rebecca E. Grinter, Architectures, Coordination, and Distance: Conway's Law and Beyond, IEEE Software, v.16 n.5, p.63-70, September 1999 [doi>10.1109/52.795103]
• 11: James D. Herbsleb , Deependra Moitra, Guest Editors' Introduction: Global Software Development, IEEE Software, v.18 n.2, p.16-20, March 2001 [doi>10.1109/52.914732]
• 12: Herbsleb, J. D., et al. Object-oriented analysis and design in software project teams. Human-Computer Interaction 10,, 1995, 249-292.
• 13: James D. Herbsleb , Audris Mockus , Thomas A. Finholt , Rebecca E. Grinter, Distance, dependencies, and delay in a global collaboration, Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.319-328, December 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/358916.359003]
• 14: Audris Mockus , Stacie Hibino , Todd Graves, A Web-based approach to interactive visualization in context, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, p.181-188, May 2000, Palermo, Italy [doi>10.1145/345513.345308]
• 15: Kohonen, T. The self organizing map. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 78(9):1464-1480, 1990.
• 16: Robert E. Kraut , Carmen Egido , Jolene Galegher, Patterns of contact and communication in scientific research collaborations, Intellectual teamwork: social and technological foundations of cooperative work, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 1990
• 17: David W. McDonald , Mark S. Ackerman, Expertise recommender: a flexible recommendation system and architecture, Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.231-240, December 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/358916.358994]
• 18: Midha, A.K. Software configuration management for the 21st century. Bell Labs Technical Journal, 2(1), Winter 1997.
• 19: Mockus, A. and Weiss, D. M. Predicting risk of software changes. Bell Labs Technical Journal, 5(2):169-180, April-June 2000.
• 20: Dewayne E. Perry , Nancy Staudenmayer , Lawrence G. Votta, People, Organizations, and Process Improvement, IEEE Software, v.11 n.4, p.36-45, July 1994 [doi>10.1109/52.300082]
• 21: Wills, G.W. Linked data views. Statistical and Computing Graphics Newsletter, 10(1):20-24, Summer 1999.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Collaborative computing

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Synchronous interaction

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Staffing

General Terms:
Design, Management, Performance