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Article

Interruptions on software teams: a comparison of paired and solo programmers

Authors:

Rosanne SiinoAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '06: Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work

Pages 29 - 38

https://doi.org/10.1145/1180875.1180882

Published: 04 November 2006 Publication History

Abstract

This study explores interruption patterns among software developers who program in pairs versus those who program solo. Ethnographic observations indicate that interruption length, content, type, occurrence time, and interrupter and interruptee strategies differed markedly for radically collocated pair programmers versus the programmers who primarily worked alone. After presenting an analysis of 242 interruptions drawn from more than 40 hours of observation data, we discuss how team configuration and work setting influenced how and when developers handled interruptions. We then suggest ways that CSCW systems might better support pair programming and, more broadly, provide interruption-handling support for workers in knowledge-intensive occupations.

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Cited By

Nees M(2024)Auditory Versus Visual Interruptions: A Skeptical Perspective on Auditory Preemption and Suggestions for Advancing TheoryAuditory Perception & Cognition10.1080/25742442.2024.23110547:2(140-162)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/25742442.2024.2311054
Junça Silva A(2024)Applying the Affective Events Theory to Explore the Effect of Daily Micro-Interruptions on Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Affect and the Moderating Role of Pets at WorkThe Spanish Journal of Psychology10.1017/SJP.2024.227Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1017/SJP.2024.2
Stray VBarbala A(2024)Slack Use in Large-Scale Agile Organizations: ESN Tools as Catalysts for Alignment?Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming10.1007/978-3-031-61154-4_2(20-35)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61154-4_2
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Interruptions on software teams: a comparison of paired and solo programmers
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '06: Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work

November 2006

548 pages

ISBN:1595932496

DOI:10.1145/1180875

General Chairs:
Pamela Hinds
Stanford University, USA
,
David Martin
SMART Technologies Inc., Canada

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 November 2006

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CSCW06

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CSCW06: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

November 4 - 8, 2006

Alberta, Banff, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

Upcoming Conference

CSCW '25

Sponsor:
sigchi

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 18 - 22, 2025

Bergen , Norway

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Cited By

Nees M(2024)Auditory Versus Visual Interruptions: A Skeptical Perspective on Auditory Preemption and Suggestions for Advancing TheoryAuditory Perception & Cognition10.1080/25742442.2024.23110547:2(140-162)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/25742442.2024.2311054
Junça Silva A(2024)Applying the Affective Events Theory to Explore the Effect of Daily Micro-Interruptions on Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Affect and the Moderating Role of Pets at WorkThe Spanish Journal of Psychology10.1017/SJP.2024.227Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1017/SJP.2024.2
Stray VBarbala A(2024)Slack Use in Large-Scale Agile Organizations: ESN Tools as Catalysts for Alignment?Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming10.1007/978-3-031-61154-4_2(20-35)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61154-4_2
Chiossi FHaliburton LOu CButz ASchmidt A(2023)Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions: Effect of Context Switching On Prospective MemoryProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580778(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580778
Yang YYe HLi YJiau H(2023)A noise blocking methodology for effective collaborationSoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.330454:5(875-895)Online publication date: 20-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.3304
Bao LLi TXia XZhu KLi HYang X(2022)How does working from home affect developer productivity? — A case study of Baidu during the COVID-19 pandemicScience China Information Sciences10.1007/s11432-020-3278-465:4Online publication date: 14-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-020-3278-4
Uddin GAlam OSerebrenik A(2022)A qualitative study of developers’ discussions of their problems and joys during the early COVID-19 monthsEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-022-10156-z27:5Online publication date: 4-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-022-10156-z
Hasan KChakraborty PShahriyar RIqbal AUddin GLanubile F(2021)A Survey-Based Qualitative Study to Characterize Expectations of Software Developers from Five StakeholdersProceedings of the 15th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1145/3475716.3475787(1-11)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3475716.3475787
Cheng JBurke Mde Gant B(2021)Country Differences in Social Comparison on Social MediaProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34341794:CSCW3(1-26)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3434179
Louie RGarg KWerner JSun AGergle DZhang H(2021)Opportunistic Collective ExperiencesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34341784:CSCW3(1-32)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3434178
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