The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

Evaluation
adds to the CSCW literature of how collaboration tools in daily use in work practice can
be utilized to support that practice (Section 3.4).
With respect to the Software Engineering literature, the contribution meets two
recognized challenges to successful project retrospectives: the problem of inadequate
data (Kasi et al. 2008) and the problem of project participants finding it ineffective
and/or not personally useful to code their experience (Schindler and Eppler 2003) – the
solution of this thesis being to utilize existing historical data.
The study by Aranda and Veolia (2009) examining the potential use of repository data
from bug fixing processes to aid coordination of SE work (Section 3.4) complements
findings in the thesis. As the study was recently published and accordingly is not
discussed in the research papers of the thesis, it will be briefly elaborated here. The
study confirms that participants‟ meaning making is essential for the reconstruction of
project trajectories (e.g. stories of bug fixing). It is difficult to use repository data as a
source of immediately useful input for decision making in day-to-day coordination
because the data are insufficient and sometimes erroneous. For instance, repository data
may frequently fail to reflect who were actually involved in the work process. In this
PhD thesis, the focus is also on how to design for meaning-making by use of historical
data, but in a setting outside the immediate time pressure of day-to-day coordination. In
the case of retrospective reflection, the reliance on human memory makes it less
important that the historical data from collaboration tools alone can provide the basis for
reconstructing complete trajectories. Historical data providing erroneous information
about the project process might of course be a problem even if participants have the
time to check it against their memory and other data sources. The use of historical data
from a set of different collaboration tools reflecting various aspects of the project
process can help participants build sufficiently coherent knowledge about the process A
similarity between the findings of Aranda and Veolia and those underlying Contribution
3 is that both studies confirm the usefulness of historical data linking the development
process to the evolving product. Seen together, the studies strengthen the argument that
data in collaboration tools may serve a dual role in project work as shown in the
reflection model in P7, and that to achieve this, the process needed for participants to
actively give meaning to the data must be given due attention, whether in the context of
retrospective reflection or in the day-to-day coordination of work.
Contribution 4 brings forward state-of-the-art CSCW and TEL research on how to
support, integrate and conceptualize work, reflection and learning in collaborative work.
The reflection model in Figure 13 is a theoretical contribution mainly to the TEL field,
building on existing models considering learning as a cyclic process in which
experience is followed by reflection on the experience (Section 2.2). State-of-the-art SE
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