Software, Software Development and other Atrocities

Sit down because this one is huge...

The PhD oral exam, also known as Viva Voce or just VIVA is one of the most exciting events at the end of your PhD studies. After submitting your thesis (that blue covered bulk of more than 350 pages containing more than 100,000 words of theoretical regurgitation+some interesting conclusions+some
diagrams/tables/pictures+acknowledgments+++) you have to wait for your VIVA. While you wait you don't want to see your thesis... It took you years, blood and tears and you don't want to find any typo or mayor error. So, you leave it aside for a while to allow it to dry off (from the blood and tears). In the mean time, you go home, see your family and friends, enjoy the nice weather, the food and parties. You also look for jobs, and if you are lucky you get one.


Some people (most of them already doctors) recommended me to not over prepare. I was told that I had to read my thesis the week before and that I should enjoy the process (that last bit was my husband's idea... hehehe I just wanted to get it done with.) Ok, so the week before you read your thesis... but the week before that one and the one before before that one... you do nothing. In some cases you want to have a mock viva, so you ask your supervisor to arrange one for you. I had mine two weeks before my VIVA and didn't prepare for it. I just went there with my happy face and had a 80 min question/answer session with J a lecturer who kindly offered to read my thesis and act as a mock examiner. The session went Ok. I was surprised of how confident I felt, and of how quickly I was able to answer the questions (hello!!! it took me years, blood and tears, so I knew the answers). Anyway, the mock VIVA was fine and then I forgot about my thesis for the rest of the week.

The week before my VIVA I started a rather boring routine. I'd go to my office early in the morning, read my e-mails, do only what was urgent (i.e.nothing) and go to the school's coffee shop with a copy of my thesis, a pencil, my cell phone and my headphones. I'd seat there for the whole day reading my thesis. ZZZZZZzzzzzz. What made my life less miserable where my friends. I was lucky to have so many that they would come in turns and distract me from my thesis (yeah!) offering me support, coffees and apple juice (thanks Andrew!). To be honest I didn't do much work until the Friday before my VIVA (my VIVA was the Monday after). That Friday I read the last 3 chapters and felt that it looked like a real thesis and that there was something worth there. Not that I didn't think it was worth it, but then I really felt it. That Friday night I also went dancing, drunk a few beers and went to bed late. I spent Saturday and Sunday doing things, keeping my self busy.

Monday morning... my VIVA was at 10:30 so I had half of the morning for me. I woke up at 6:30 and went running for 30mins. (I hurt my foot a bit but it wasn't that painful.) I showered, put on my suit (yes, I looked like a CEO) had a nice breakfast and went to Uni. Then, my usual routine, checked my e-mails, and then went to the coffee shop. There I met Guja, then Andrew, then Yi, then Inga, then, then... I had to go to the meeting room. I brought with me a copy of my thesis, and my data (about 5Kg).

The meeting room was a small room with a big table and 6 chairs. When I got there, both, the internal and the external examiners were there with my supervisor. I introduced myself to the examiners and then the external examiner, who was chairing the session, started the exam.

First question: what is the argument of your thesis?
answer: skip this is if you don't care about software development... my thesis looks at how human and social issues in business organisational contexts and development environments affect software developers thinking process and how this thinking process shapes the software they produce.

So the argument of my thesis is that human and social aspects play a significant role in shaping developers work, beliefs, behaviour, interactions and working practices, and that that in turn affects the nature and perhaps the quality of the software they develop.

Developers act first based on their preconceptions of the characteristics of the organisations and people they are working for (and with) and the qualities of the development practices they know or have used. These preconceptions are background knowledge about the human and social nature of organisational environments (who use software) and the development environments (where software is produced). Background knowledge also involves developers' beliefs about how development practices provide them with enough tools to address human and social issues. Preconceptions therefore shape developers' views on new assignments, for example developing new software for a new organisation. The picture that developers build of their new target organisation and the software that is needed is first based on their preconceptions particularly their human and social aspects. In my thesis I modeled this in a recursive way as the pictures that developers build of their new assignments (organisations, people and software) will become preconceptions and influence their future assignments.

So how did I end up saying that all these preconceptions + new knowledge of human and social issues affect the quality of software? Easy... 1st. from the literature, one of the most known causes of software failure is the neglect of human and social aspects (read Warne(2003)*). 2nd. perhaps a bit of common sense... if you are developing software which are going to be used by people, you need to know the users. Human beings are unpredictable, nonlinear and ambiguos. People could hold secret agendas or have separate goals. People could easily change their minds about the software and decide to subvert it or just not use it. I think we all have seen users saying they need A one day and the next day they will tell you the never said A and that they are wating for B... and that you are already late!!. If you are not aware of these issues your software will be a disaster. 3rd. As a developer you should know that what is more difficult for you is not to learn how to design or programme software but to work with your colleagues, in a particular environment, understand your users, agree with your manager and not hate the DBA. If you are working in an unfriendly environment then your software will also be unfriendly.
--- end of answer ---

Ok... enough of this ... back to the story...

so I had like 30 or so questions like that (don't really remember I didn't count them)

After 1:30hr the external and the internal agreed that that was it. They asked my supervisor and me to go and they told us that they were going to call us in 30 mins to discuss their decision. (When I went out I found a note and flowers for me left by my husband out in the corridor... he is so lovely:)) My supervisor and I went to her office and we played with our new toys, my new cell phone Ericsson K800i and her O2 PDA. 50 mins later we were called back to the meeting room. I saw the internal examiner had a sheet of paper hand written in both sides. He started by saying there were some ammendments they would like me to do in my thesis. So we went through all the points they wanted me to change (7 in total) and at the end the examiners said I had passed (of course only if I did those corrections).

I went out of the room and said thanks and bye to the examiners. They were going out for lunch with my supervisor. They invited me but I denied the offer as I was really exahusted and just wanted to see my husband.

Now... I should end the story here because I am tired, I want my dinner and I don't want to bore you more.

Any questions???


*Warne, L., (2003), 'Conflict and Politics and Information Systems Failure: A challenge for Information Systems Professionals and Researchers', in Clarke, S., Coakes, E., Hunter, G. M. and Wenn, A. (eds.), Socio-technical and human cognition elements of information systems, Hershey, Pa., Idea Group