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Communication costs in code and design reviews: an empirical study

Software development managers strive to control all of the factors that might impact the success of their projects. However, not all of these factors have been identified, much less understood enough to be controlled or manipulated. One important but poorly understood factor is communication between developers. This paper presents results from an exploratory study which aimed to identify some of the characteristics which affect communication costs in software development, and to begin to understand those effects. Communication patterns were observed during code and design reviews. At the same time, data were gathered about organizational and other contextual factors. A number of well-grounded hypotheses were generated from the data collected. One such hypothesis, which was strongly suggested by the data, is the subject of this paper. It states that groups require more effort to communicate when they include a few (but not too many) members who are organizationally distant from the others, and less effort is required when the group is composed of all or nearly all organizationally distant members. In this paper, we describe the data that supports this hypothesis as well as those that dispute it, and argue for its continued study.