Department of IT Management

The department conducts research on software development methods, human judgment and decision making in software development contexts, benefits management, cost estimation, risk and uncertainty management, use of contracts and models for user involvements. The main research approach is empirical, including controlled experiments, observational studies, case studies and surveys.
The department’s main goal is to discover important relationships and connections related to the management of software development work, and use this to contribute to substantial improvement in software development processes and products. For this purpose, we work in close collaboration with industry partners in most of our research. We emphasize the transfer of new and useful knowledge to the industry by publishing and presenting not only in academic venues, but also at industry venues.
The IT Management Department also runs Hovedstadsområdets nettverk for IT-styring og ledelse (HIT-Nettverket), which is a network with the goal of increasing competance through sharing experiences in IT management. The network consist of research institutes, IT companies, consultant companies, public stakeholders and clients with an interest in IT management. The themes includes focuses both in the client and the supplier perspective, in addition to strategic, administrative and project related challenges. Read more about HIT here.
In addition, the department is in charge of the EDOS center (Effective Organization of Public Sector). This center is funded by the Ministry of Local Government and Modernization and was created in 2020. EDOS conducts surveys and analyzes information on digitalization in the public sector. The research aims to provide knowledge about what leads to successful digitalization in the public sector and to disseminate knowledge that leads to higher efficiency and more value creation. Read more about EDOS here.
People at Department of IT Management
Who we are?
Simula Metropolitan employees are researchers, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, engineers and administrative people. We are from all over the world, ranging from newly educated to experienced researchers, all working on making research in digital engineering at the highest international level possible.
Publications at Department of IT Management
Journal Article
Team resource management decisions in software development projects
submitted to a journal (2020).Status: Submitted
Team resource management decisions in software development projects
Purpose: This paper examines to what extent resource managers are likely to make normatively correct decisions in complex, but realistic, software development team resource management situations.
Research design: Three scenarios were designed, all of them with a software development project consisting of a higher and a lower productivity team. The resource managers were asked to decide which team to increase (or decrease) the productivity by 10% in order to minimize the total effort or the total duration of the software project. Ninety-nine software professionals, most of them with substantial resource management experience, were randomly allocated one of the scenarios.
Findings: Most of the resource managers perceived their scenario as realistic and occurring in practice. The decisions tended, however, to be different from the normatively correct ones. In particular, when the scenario structure resembled that used to document a time-saving bias, the great majority of the managers made non-normative decisions. The findings suggest that the resource managers made decisions based on simple heuristics, often leading to non-normative decisions. When asked about the decisions they would make in practice, more of the resource managers gave normatively correct responses. Our findings suggest a cost-saving potential from more awareness of how to make team resource management decisions.
Originality: The study may be the first to document non-normative team resource decisions, including those related to the time-saving bias, in the context of project management.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | submitted to a journal |
Publisher | xxx |
An empirically evaluated checklist for surveys in software engineering
Information and Software Technology 119 (2020): 106240.Status: Published
An empirically evaluated checklist for surveys in software engineering
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | Information and Software Technology |
Volume | 119 |
Pagination | 106240 |
Date Published | Jan-03-2020 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
ISSN | 09505849 |
URL | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2019.106240 |
DOI | 10.1016/j.infsof.2019.106240 |
Relations Between Effort Estimates, Skill Indicators, and Measured Programming Skill
Transactions on Software Engineering (2020).Status: Published
Relations Between Effort Estimates, Skill Indicators, and Measured Programming Skill
There are large skill differences among software developers, and clients and managers will benefit from being able to identify those with better skill. This study examines the relations between low effort estimates, and other commonly used skill indicators, and measured programming skill. One hundred and four professional software developers were recruited. After skill-related information was collected, they were asked to estimate the effort for four larger and five smaller programming tasks. Finally, they completed a programming skill test. The lowest and most over-optimistic effort estimates for the larger tasks were given by those with the lowest programming skill, which is in accordance with the well-known Dunning-Kruger effect. For the smaller tasks, however, those with the lowest programming skill had the highest and most over-pessimistic estimates. The other programming skill indicators, such as length of experience, company assessed skill and self-assessed skill, were only moderately correlated with measured skill and not particularly useful in guiding developer skill identification. A practical implication is that for larger and more complex tasks, the use of low effort estimates and commonly used skill indicators as selection criteria leads to a substantial risk of selecting among the least skilled developers.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | Transactions on Software Engineering |
Date Published | February 2020 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Sequence effects in the estimation of software development effort
Journal of Systems and Software 159, no. January 2020 (2020): 110448.Status: Published
Sequence effects in the estimation of software development effort
Currently, little is known about how much the sequence in which software development tasks or projects are estimated affects judgment-based effort estimates. To gain more knowledge, we examined estimation sequence effects in two experiments. In the first experiment, 362 software professionals estimated the effort of three large tasks of similar sizes, whereas in the second experiment 104 software professionals estimated the effort of four large and five small tasks. The sequence of the tasks was randomised in both experiments. The first experiment, with tasks of similar size, showed a mean increase of 10% from the first to the second and a 3% increase from the second to the third estimate. The second experiment showed that estimating a larger task after a smaller one led to a mean decrease in the estimate of 24%, and that estimating a smaller task after a larger one led to a mean increase of 25%. There was no statistically significant reduction in the sequence effect with higher competence. We conclude that more awareness about how the estimation sequence affects the estimates may reduce potentially harmful estimation biases. In particular, it may reduce the likelihood of a bias towards too low effort estimates.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | Journal of Systems and Software |
Volume | 159 |
Issue | January 2020 |
Pagination | 110448 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
How to pose for a professional photo: The effect of three facial expressions on perception of competence of a software developer
Australian Journal of Psychology 72 (2020): 257-266.Status: Published
How to pose for a professional photo: The effect of three facial expressions on perception of competence of a software developer
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Journal | Australian Journal of Psychology |
Volume | 72 |
Pagination | 257-266 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Miscellaneous
ACM SIGSOFT empirical standards
In arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.03525. https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.03525: ACM, 2020.Status: Published
ACM SIGSOFT empirical standards
Empirical Standards are brief public document that communicate expectations for a specific kind of study (e.g. a questionnaire survey). The ACM SIGSOFT Paper and Peer Review Quality Initiative generated empirical standards for common research methods in software engineering. These living documents, which should be continuously revised to reflect evolving consensus around research best practices, can be used to make peer review more transparent, structured, harmonious and fair.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Miscellaneous |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Publisher | ACM |
Place Published | https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.03525 |
Proceedings, refereed
Enabling Team Autonomy in a Large Public Organization
In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - Workshops. Springer, 2020.Status: Published
Enabling Team Autonomy in a Large Public Organization
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Conference Name | Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - Workshops |
Pagination | 245–252 |
Publisher | Springer |
Benefits management and agile practices in software projects: how perceived benefits are impacted
In IEEE 22nd Conference on Business Informatics (CBI). Vol. 2. IEEE, 2020.Status: Published
Benefits management and agile practices in software projects: how perceived benefits are impacted
Considerable resources are wasted on projects that deliver few or no benefits. The main objective is to better understand the characteristics of projects that are successful in delivering good client benefits. We asked 71 Norwegian software professionals to report information about projects completed between 2016 and 2018. We found that both benefits management and agile practices have a significant relationship with perceived realisation of client benefits. This includes the benefits management practices of having a plan for benefits realisation, individuals with assigned responsibility for benefits realisation, benefits management during project execution, quantification of realised benefits, evaluation of realised benefits, re-estimation of benefits during project execution, and the agile practices of a flexible scope and frequent deliveries to production. The software projects that were successful in delivering client benefits adopted benefits management and agile practices to a larger extent than the less successful ones. Future studies are required to establish more comprehensive understanding of what distinguishes projects that deliver good client benefits from the rest, including studies of the realisation of client benefits in agile software projects.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
Year of Publication | 2020 |
Conference Name | IEEE 22nd Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) |
Volume | 2 |
Pagination | 48-56 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Journal Article
CERSE - Catalog for empirical research in software engineering: A Systematic mapping study
Information and Software Technology 105 (2019): 117-149.Status: Published
CERSE - Catalog for empirical research in software engineering: A Systematic mapping study
Context Empirical research in software engineering contributes towards developing scientific knowledge in this field, which in turn is relevant to inform decision-making in industry. A number of empirical studies have been carried out to date in software engineering, and the need for guidelines for conducting and evaluating such research has been stressed.
Objective: The main goal of this mapping study is to identify and summarize the body of knowledge on research guidelines, assessment instruments and knowledge organization systems on how to conduct and evaluate empirical research in software engineering.
Method: A systematic mapping study employing manual search and snowballing techniques was carried out to identify the suitable papers. To build up the catalog, we extracted and categorized information provided by the identified papers.
Results: The mapping study comprises a list of 341 methodological papers, classified according to research methods, research phases covered, and type of instrument provided. Later, we derived a brief explanatory review of the instruments provided for each of the research methods.
Conclusion: We provide: an aggregated body of knowledge on the state of the art relating to guidelines, assessment instruments and knowledge organization systems for carrying out empirical software engineering research; an exemplary usage scenario that can be used to guide those carrying out such studies is also provided. Finally, we discuss the catalog’s implications for research practice and the needs for further research.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2019 |
Journal | Information and Software Technology |
Volume | 105 |
Pagination | 117 - 149 |
Date Published | Jan-01-2019 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
ISSN | 09505849 |
Keywords | Empirical methods, Empirical research, Mapping study |
URL | https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0950584917301118https://ap... |
DOI | 10.1016/j.infsof.2018.08.008 |
Evaluating Probabilistic Software Development Effort Estimates Maximizing Informativeness Subject to Calibration
Information and Software Technology 115 (2019): 93-96.Status: Published
Evaluating Probabilistic Software Development Effort Estimates Maximizing Informativeness Subject to Calibration
Context: Probabilistic effort estimates inform about the uncertainty and may give useful input to plans, budgets and investment analyses. Objective & Method: This paper introduces, motivates and illustrates two principles on how to evaluate the accuracy and other performance criteria of probabilistic effort estimates in software development contexts. Results: The first principle emphasizes a consistency between the estimation error measure and the loss function of the chosen type of probabilistic single point effort estimates. The second principle points at the importance of not just measuring calibration, but also informativeness of estimated prediction intervals and distributions. The relevance of the evaluation principles is illustrated by a performance evaluation of estimates from twenty-eight software professionals using two different uncertainty assessment methods to estimate the effort of the same thirty software maintenance tasks.
Afilliation | Software Engineering |
Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2019 |
Journal | Information and Software Technology |
Volume | 115 |
Pagination | 93-96 |
Publisher | Elsevier |