Challenges when Applying Repertory Grid Technique for Software Practices

Abstract

The Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) has been applied within the software engineering domain to investigate a variety of topics. These include topics relating to architectural knowledge, team level tacit knowledge, and project success mechanisms. The technique is based on Personal Construct Theory (PCT) and is claimed to be suitable for gaining a deep understanding of peoples’ perspectives on a topic. The essence of RGT is a consideration of similarities and differences, for example, between different project instances. In this paper, we describe a case study in which we applied the technique with the aim of eliciting practitioners’ viewpoints on contextual factors for situated software practices. We interviewed twelve practitioners in three organisations. We found that the RGT approach was challenging to implement for several reasons. Participants had difficulty in choosing specific instances of a software practice, identifying similarities and differences tended to be problematic and causal pathways were not always easy to establish. Our contributions are the highlighting of the challenges that may occur when implementing this technique, an analysis of the issues encountered and some possible mitigation approaches. These may serve as support for SE researchers considering an RGT based study.