IWSED-95: International Workshop on Software Engineering Data

IWSED-95 Feedback Questionnaire Responses

These were the questions included in the feedback questionnaire. We have numbered each respondents reply so that replies can be viewed also by each respondent (i.e., reply numbers identify the respondent).

1. What do you think of IWSED-95 ?

  1. "I found the university-industry mix very useful."
  2. "Crepuscular" [dictionary: "of or like twilight; dim"]
  3. "Instructive + informative - intercultural interactions very useful"
  4. "Interesting to meet and talk to people. Good presentations. The working group (RM) was less interesting. Too chaotic and unorganized."
  5. "80% 'data gathering on problems, solutions, techniques - experiments. I think this is good; did you want more?"
  6. "Interesting topics. Usability depends on how I can tailor ideas later into my own use."
  7. "There had been [discussions on] a lot of 'old' & 'well-known' problems; informal connections and exchange of experience between different companies/participants is very worthwhile."
  8. "A very important workshop for us!"
  9. "Good opportunity to get broad exposure to software engineering techniques in many areas of the world on spot."
  10. "It was good. Perhaps things were dealt with too often in generalities which resulted in too many truisms".
  11. "Good representation of nations and industries. Candid discussion."
  12. "Interesting initiative and topic."
  13. "Good workshop, meaningful especially for the practitioners. IWSE Data, not IWS Engineering Theory."
  14. "Stimulating 3 days! I have a number of ideas that I will take home and try to implement as a result."
  15. "Excellent - good mix of academia/industry, discussion/presentation."

2. What should we change it to make it better?

  1. "The questionnaire should be easier to fill out for people who are not owners of the data. I had confidentiality problems in disclosing data, and I understand that made my questionnaire difficult to use."
  2. "Perhaps offer (or invite) the list of focal points for each discussion group somewhat earlier on, to allow preparation for the meeting by individual participants, which would deepen and sharpen the discussion content (although it is extra work, perhaps each chairman should prepare something based on feedback from other discussants beforehand, or each discussant should be asked to submit some brief 'position statement')."
  3. "More 'total' group interactions, have all participants (organizations) make 'best practice + results' presentations. Or 'areas of problems' discussions."
  4. "Better preparation of working group agenda (?). Give a booklet with the questionnaire to each participant before the meeting."
  5. "More examples of success stories in metrics in areas of risk management, quality, project management, & measurement programs".
  6. "Smaller working groups to help non-native English speakers to participate in discussions."
  7. "To involve the filled-in questionnaire in the working group; discuss problems and issues in the context of explicit data samples, e.g., from one questionnaire; better pre-preparation of working groups (selection of participants, content, goal, …)."
  8. "More refer[ence]/base on questionaire in work groups; some measurement examples from questionnaire of 2-3 participants should be presented and discussed".
  9. "Workshop participants should be able to see the workshop questionnaire data, not in aggregate. But then companies don't need to be explicitly identified, either, The questionnaire and the workshop questions need to be more carefully [constrained?] - there were some areas that were not clear and inconsistent. There was very little overlap in attendants from previous IWSED sessions so the context needed to be explained more fully. The project management team had no overlap from last year - so we did not know where the workshop questions were trying to go."
  10. "Focus, perhaps one of the three topics; one topic/year, the same topic every three years".
  11. "Firm up the agenda early. Make more use of survey data".
  12. "Make some use of the questionnaire sent before; really come to some conclusions in the end."
  13. "Discussions should be based on experience and data; theoretical issues are not the main focus of this workshop."
  14. "Recognize and accommodate the language constraints."
  15. "Presentations could be better tailored to session topics. Also, the working group topics were overlapping (perhaps unavoidable) and somewhat ambiguous."

3. Would you come again if IWSED is organized

[Comment: in the following figures we summed up how many respondents clearly indicated the possibility to participate. Note that five respondents indicated an interest to participate in both cases and one left both blank. ]

one year from now: 8 (plus one 'maybe')

two years from now: 12

4. What are the topics that should be addressed in the next IWSED?

  1. "Data analysis techniques for software engineering: state of the practice in the industry, what is available in other fields."
  2. "Current topics are fine. Perhaps, it would be good to try to get a handle on the strengths of each participant, to know how to balance the workgroups between academics and practics (new word) (sounds better than illiterati)."
  3. "Discuss cause + effect and cost benefit of process change."
  4. "Hopefully more practical experience on risk management will be present. Encourage more practitioning industry people to attend. This year too theoretical."
  5. "project management and risk management".
  6. "Measurement/metrics baselines, data collection/analysis techniques and methods, management/culture aspects of measurement programs, how to get feedback".
  7. "How to implement existing solutions into the software organizations (there is a wide gap between state of the art and practice - why?); how to involve human factors into quality improvement (they are difficult to measure!)".
  8. "Experiences with establishing/introducing a measurement program".
  9. "A framework for comparing projects and paradigms."
  10. "Outside of trading generality for depth?"
  11. "Quality in the context of business."
  12. "'General' metrics, practical 'stories' of introduction of metrics; combination of process and metrics."
  13. "What is context information; what questions can collect the context information; how to get data from different organizations inter-comparable".
  14. "Organizational issues, how to set up experiments in production environment; categorizing various instantiations of 'experience factors' or of their learning structures".
  15. "How to exploit currently collected data for research purposes - how to do a study by mining existing data; presentation of data - what information must be provided to allow comparison of results across settings."

5. Were you happy with the facilities and practical arrangements, any comments?

  1. "Everything went smoothly"
  2. I was a late-applier and was off-loaded to Holiday Inn. As cheap motels go, the facilities were quite acceptable, but shuttle system was onerous, and it was too far to walk (although I noticed many closer motels of relatively comparable repute) The shuttle refused to pick me up from CP metro station and was quite late whenever I tried to call them. "
  3. "Arragement OK"
  4. "really nice meals. Good idea with microphones for the audience."
  5. "yes"
  6. "yes"
  7. "The room reservations should be better organized, there had been several problems; the location at the university and the social events: excellent!".
  8. "Yes, but not in all aspects (changes in program and hotel reservation)."
  9. "yes"
  10. "Yes, access for modems was lacking."
  11. "Very much"
  12. "Fine social events and arrangements; one of the hotels too far from the conference hall."
  13. "YES, thank you for considerations of UMD people."
  14. "yes"
  15. "More time for lunch - had to eat too fast and then got sleepy during sessions."

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Updated 24-Jan-96 by Jyrki Kontio

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