D. Russo, K.-J., Stol. 2019. Soft Theory: A Pragmatic Alternative to Conduct Quantitative Empirical Studies. Proc. of the 41st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion.

1. SOFT THEORY: A PRAGMATIC ALTERNATIVE TO
CONDUCT QUANTITATIVE EMPIRICAL STUDIES
Daniel Russo* & Klaas-Jan Stol

2. HOW TO DEAL WITH EMERGENT
PHENOMENA USING QUANTITATIVE
DATA?
ESPECIALLY IN INDUSTRY SETTINGS?

3. TYPICAL QUESTIONS
➤ Where should I start?
➤ How to minimise practitioners
efforts?
➤ How to design my research in
a ‘sustainable’ way?
➤ How can I investigate it in a
credible way?
➤ How can I convey
community’s discussion on
my topic?

4. ‘SOFT’ THEORISE YOUR
FINDINGS

5. SOFT THEORY HARD THEORY
Context New research phenomena Well known subject matter
Goal Preliminary understanding
Confirm & Extend SE
theories
Outcome Conceptual models Causation-based model
Example
Why episodic volunteers
contribute to FLOSS projects
Software cost estimation
(COCOMO I & II)

6. Dinesh Batra, 2018. Agile values or plan-driven aspects: Which factor contributes more toward the success of data
warehousing, business intelligence, and analytics project development?, Journal of Systems and Software, V. 146, pp.
249-262
For example…

7. NOT ALL DATA ANALYSES
ARE THE SAME

9. Data Analysis Aim Methods Example
Descriptive
Description of a
data set
Univariate
State of Agile
(VersionOne)
Exploratory Find relationships Correlation
SW metrics & B.
indicators
Inferential Hypotesis testing Regression
Defect decrease
with code reviews
Predictive Hypotesis testing Regression
Defect prediction
in NASA’s data
Causal
Causal
relationships
Controlled
experiment
Tools decreases
bugs
Mechanistic Exact relationship
Experiments w.
determ. equations
COCOMO

10. CONCLUSIONS
➤ Don’t use hard theory
approaches if there is little
knowledge available
➤ Use research instruments
which provide rich insights
from little knowledge
➤ Soft theory techniques are
robust models which provide
insightful understanding of
new phenomena
➤ Be consistent with the
approach and avoid wrong
claims

11. QUESTIONS
daniel.russo@lero.ie