people management

This study investigates effective mentoring practices in open-source software (OSS) communities to identify strategies, mentor attributes, and outcome metrics that enhance newcomer onboarding and competency development. Method: A two-phase mixed-methods survey involving 155 contributors was conducted, integrating Likert-scale quantitative analysis with qualitative thematic coding. Contribution/Results: The study proposes the first empirically grounded “Strategy–Quality–Outcome” mentoring framework for OSS, comprising 21 actionable, evidence-based mentoring strategies; 12 high-consensus core mentor qualities (e.g., patience, responsiveness); and 7 measurable developmental outcomes (e.g., capacity for independent contribution, sense of community belonging). It further introduces a novel Challenge–Strategy mapping matrix and a Quality–Outcome association model. Validated through rigorous empirical analysis, the framework has been formally adopted as a mentor training guideline by multiple international open-source foundations.

This study addresses a critical gap in software leadership research by moving beyond formal roles or theoretical models to examine how practitioners genuinely enact leadership in practice. Through a systematic content analysis of 116 self-reported articles from the Dev.to community, the authors construct the first empirical framework of software leadership grounded in social media discourse. The analysis yields 103 recommended and discouraged leadership practices, organized into five thematic categories and represented through a visual conceptual map. Findings reveal that effective software leadership centers on interpersonal and managerial competencies rather than technical expertise, thereby challenging conventional role- or technology-centric perspectives and offering a nuanced, practice-based understanding of leadership in software development contexts.

This study investigates the causal relationship between dynamic leadership evolution and project success in software development teams. Method: Leveraging fine-grained temporal development data from the Rust, JavaScript, and Python ecosystems, we apply temporal network analysis, survival modeling, heterogeneity measurement, and propensity score matching to rigorously identify causal effects. Contribution/Results: We provide the first empirical evidence that (1) early dominance by core developers increases the likelihood of leadership turnover; (2) approximately 38% of projects undergo leadership change, after which the project success growth rate increases by a factor of 2.1 (p < 0.01); and (3) higher leadership heterogeneity significantly correlates with increased project success probability. Moving beyond static team modeling paradigms, this work establishes leadership dynamics as a key driver of team performance, offering empirically grounded theoretical insights and actionable implications for open-source governance and software engineering management.

In team formation and execution, misalignment among user preferences, dynamic objectives, and individual traits leads to low satisfaction, weak commitment, and suboptimal performance. Method: This paper proposes an AI-augmented dynamic team optimization framework comprising three components: (1) intelligent team formation via preference–objective alignment, (2) tAIfa—a real-time, personalized feedback intervention system, and (3) PuppeteerLLM—a multi-agent simulation and modeling platform. It introduces a novel closed-loop optimization paradigm integrating multi-armed bandits with large language models (LLMs), overcoming key limitations of conventional approaches—static configuration, single-objective optimization, and poor generalizability. Contribution/Results: Empirical and simulation evaluations demonstrate an average 23% improvement in team performance, a 3.8× acceleration in behavioral adaptation response time, and significant gains in member engagement and team cohesion.

Prior research has largely overlooked the role of cultural mechanisms in fostering creativity within high-performing software development teams. Method: Addressing this gap, we conduct a cross-organizational, cross-domain multiple-case study—employing in-depth interviews, on-site behavioral observation, and pattern abstraction—to empirically identify practices sustaining continuous innovation. Contribution/Results: We introduce “contrast” as a novel, culturally embedded driver of creativity and systematically develop an actionable “creative action” framework, specifying corresponding cultural behavioral signatures. The study yields a reusable set of evidence-based strategies for cultivating creativity through cultural shaping, collaborative design, and process optimization—thereby bridging a critical gap in software engineering research concerning the mechanistic underpinnings of creativity and the practical pathways for cultural enactment.

This study addresses the lack of systematic synthesis in soft skills research within agile software development over the past 25 years, a gap that has hindered the integration of technical and human-centric factors. Through a systematic literature mapping of 97 studies sourced from multiple databases spanning 2000 to 2025, this work constructs the first evolutionary map of soft skills in agile contexts, with a focus on mainstream frameworks such as Scrum. The analysis identifies communication, adaptability, teamwork, and leadership as core soft skills, elucidates their relationships with specific agile roles and methodologies, and highlights a critical research gap concerning role-specific soft skill requirements. These findings offer empirical grounding and theoretical support for advancing agile education, training programs, and organizational practices.

This study investigates how immersive technologies can effectively foster the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) essential for team collaboration—such as communication, coordination, trust, and reflection. To this end, we designed and evaluated a colocated, tablet-based virtual reality team training system that innovatively integrates a narrative-driven asymmetric interaction mechanism with a theoretical framework of team KSAs. The design leverages spatial separation, tool asymmetry, and task interdependence to elicit verbal coordination. Task scenarios were modeled through interviews with human resources experts to ensure ecological validity. An experiment with 16 participants demonstrated that users dynamically employed verbal communication, role negotiation, and shared representations to effectively exhibit core team KSAs, thereby validating the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed paradigm.

This study addresses the unclear relationship between the number of intellectual leaders in scientific teams and team performance, measured in terms of scholarly impact and disruptiveness. Leveraging contribution statements from over 140,000 papers in PLOS, the authors identify individuals responsible for conceptual tasks as intellectual leaders and employ causal inference and moderation models to examine how their quantity influences outcomes. The analysis reveals, for the first time, an inverted U-shaped relationship between the number of intellectual leaders and impact, indicating an optimal range that maximizes influence; however, increasing their number consistently diminishes the disruptiveness of outputs. Furthermore, while international collaboration enhances impact, it concurrently suppresses disruptiveness. These findings provide crucial empirical evidence for optimizing the composition and organization of research teams.

Early-career software engineers are frequently affected by the Impostor Phenomenon (IP), which can adversely impact their psychological well-being and professional development. This study presents the first empirical evaluation of a structured group coaching intervention targeting IP within a software engineering context. Employing a quasi-experimental design with a waitlist control group and non-participant observation, the research assessed 20 participants using multidimensional psychological measures, including the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS), WHO-5 Well-Being Index, Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Although the intervention yielded a modest reduction in CIPS scores, the control group exhibited comparable improvements over the same period, suggesting that contextual factors—such as team collaboration and project dynamics—may play a more substantial role in alleviating IP than the coaching itself. These findings offer novel insights into the mechanisms underlying IP in technical workplace settings.