A Reﬂection on the Use of Systemic Thinking in Software Development

Paolo Ciancarini

1 a

, Mirko Farina

2 b

, Artem Kruglov

2 c

, Giancarlo Succi

1 d

and Ananga Thapaliya

2 e

University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Innopolis University, Universitetskaya st., 1, Innopolis, Russia

Keywords:

Systemic Thinking, Software Engineering, External Factors.

Abstract:

The research examines the value and potential usefulness of using systemic thinking, which looks at the inter-

connectedness of things, to comprehend the complexities of software development projects and the technical

and human factors involved. It considers two different aspects of systemic thinking - psychological and so-

ciological - and posits that these can assist in understanding how software teams function and attain their

objectives, as well as the goals of the entities for which they work. Our research aims to provide a novel

contribution to the ﬁeld by investigating the use of systemic thinking in software development teams and

organizations. We evaluate the reliability and validity of the survey applied to different groups of relevant

participants, relate our ﬁndings to existing literature, and identify the most representative factors of systemic

thinking. Despite the popularity of various factors that fall under the umbrella of ’systems thinking’, there is

limited understanding of their effectiveness in improving organizational performance or productivity, particu-

larly when it comes to psychological and sociological systemic factors. The relationship between the use of

systems thinking and organizational performance is often based on anecdotal evidence, rather than the identiﬁ-

cation and application of speciﬁc factors. Our work emphasizes the importance of understanding and applying

such factors in order to build a solid foundation for the effective use of system dynamics and systems thinking

tools, which is crucial for software development teams.

1 INTRODUCTION

Systemic thinking is a ﬁeld of research that takes

a holistic approach to understanding complex struc-

tures, whether physical, virtual, or numerical (Sheri-

dan, 2010). It aims to study systems from a ”sys-

tem of systems” perspective, meaning it looks at how

different systems interact and depend on one another

(Gall

on, 2020). This interdisciplinary ﬁeld draws on

various disciplines including engineering, computer

science, cognitive science, management, philosophy,

psychology, and biology (Lipson, 2007).

In this paper, we use systemic thinking as a way

to understand and improve the design and manage-

ment of complex systems and their life cycles (Ed-

son, 2008; Boardman and Sauser, 2008). We view

teams as systems made up of individuals with differ-

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7958-9924

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8342-6549

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2038-1392

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8847-0186

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4526-1090

ent skills working together towards a common goal

or plan (Katzenbach and Smith, 2008) and apply this

understanding to software development teams speciﬁ-

cally. We believe that using this approach can provide

valuable insights into how to improve teamwork in

software engineering.

While individual contributions are important in

software development, it is also important to recog-

nize that teams play a crucial role in the IT industry.

Teams can be a key factor in a company’s success and

are often necessary to meet the demands of a com-

petitive industry. In order to understand how software

teams function and the dynamics within them, it is im-

portant to use systemic thinking as a tool for insight

and understanding (Gogichaty et al., 2023; Zahra and

Bogner, 2000). This is why we have chosen to use

systemic thinking as a framework in this paper to ex-

plore the relationships and dynamics within software

development teams.

The study aims to test the hypothesis by address-

ing the following sub-questions:

1. What elements of systemic thinking can be found

in the actions and interactions of individuals,

Ciancarini, P., Farina, M., Kruglov, A., Succi, G. and Thapaliya, A.

A Reﬂection on the Use of Systemic Thinking in Software Development.

DOI: 10.5220/0011963300003464

In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2023), pages 521-529

ISBN: 978-989-758-647-7; ISSN: 2184-4895

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

521

teams, and organizations involved in software en-

gineering?

2. Are those in the software engineering ﬁeld aware

of these elements?

Section 2 argues that a wide range of factors,

broadly classiﬁed as psychological and sociological,

play a crucial role in software development and goes

on to examine these factors in depth. In an effort

to conﬁrm the hypothesis that systemic thinking can

aid in understanding how software teams work and

achieve their goals, Section 3 explains the research

methodology and experimental design used in the

study. Section 4 presents a critical analysis of the

qualitative data collected and Section 5 summarizes

the ﬁndings and their signiﬁcance to the software en-

gineering ﬁeld. Finally, Section 6 summarizes the

study’s key takeaways and suggests potential areas for

future research.

2 SYSTEMIC THINKING

FACTORS IN SOFTWARE

DEVELOPMENT

The success or failure of software teams is not solely

dependent on the technology being used, the skills of

team members, or the internal dynamics of a speciﬁc

project. External factors, such as organizational, psy-

chological, and sociological, can have a signiﬁcant

impact on the performance of software teams. These

external factors are often instrumental or constitu-

tive in the functioning of software companies, and in

the practice of software engineering and development

overall. Therefore, it is important to consider and un-

derstand these external factors when analyzing soft-

ware teams.

Many researchers (Capretz, 2014; Feldt et al.,

2008) in the ﬁeld of software development have ar-

gued that psychological and sociological factors have

a direct impact on the production of software pro-

grams. They have pointed out that external factors

such as inspiration (Beecham et al., 2008; Sharp et al.,

2009; Hall et al., 2009), character (Cruz et al., 2011),

and the environment (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006)

in which software is created play a fundamental role

in the process. This is an important consideration as

it highlights that when discussing the creation of soft-

ware, it’s necessary to take into account not just the

technical aspects but also the context and environment

in which it is created. This goes beyond what is often

referred to as ”soft skills,” (Ahmed et al., 2012; Mat-

turro, 2013; Matturro et al., 2015) which are often re-

duced to generic statements about someone’s person-

ality. The creation of software is a complex undertak-

ing that requires distributed intelligence across team

members (Nerur, 2014), and a deeper understanding

of psychology and sociology may provide unique in-

sights into the dynamics of these teams.

There is a risk that software engineers may not

fully understand the key factors that contribute to the

success or failure of software projects, by focusing

too much on formalized procedures and techniques

of change control and neglecting the role of indi-

viduals and their relationship with the environment

(Oreg, 2003). For example, in software development,

resistance to change, which is often inﬂuenced by

environmental factors, maybe a more important fac-

tor to consider than formalized change control pro-

cesses. However, most research in software develop-

ment has focused on formalized procedures and tech-

niques, rather than the role of individuals and their

relationship with the environment (Unterkalmsteiner

et al., 2011).

In this section, we will argue that using two

branches of systemic thinking, namely psychological

systemic thinking and systemic sociological thinking,

can help us gain important insights into the nature,

scope, and dynamics of collaborative partnerships in

software development.

Several authors (Hazzan and Hadar, 2008; Tren-

dowicz and M

unch, 2009; Amrit et al., 2014) have

demonstrated that software engineering is a human-

centered activity that is greatly impacted by people’s

emotions, memories, and behaviors. Software pro-

duction is greatly inﬂuenced by cognitive factors and

external systemic processes (Feldt et al., 2010; Khan

et al., 2011; Lenberg et al., 2014). In software ﬁrms,

software design, especially when using Agile method-

ologies, must take into account not only the project’s

objectives but also the interactions among team mem-

bers in delivering the end product. Therefore, psycho-

logical and sociological factors that underlie people’s

behaviors are extremely important for software devel-

opers. Systemic thinking is a fundamental tool for

understanding these factors. In this section, we will

examine two branches of systemic thinking, psycho-

logical and sociological, that are relevant to our work.

2.1 Psychological Systemic Thinking

Psychological systemic thinking is a branch of psy-

chology that deals with practices and actions in the

environment (Schultz and Schultz, 1998). It has

several different applications in psychology (Curtis,

1984), including forensic psychology (Tornhill, 2015)

where it is used to predict the future of the code-

base, evaluate the refactoring direction, and under-

ENASE 2023 - 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering

522

stand how a team may inﬂuence a design. Other ap-

plications include studying the effect of moods on de-

velopers’ debugging performance (Khan et al., 2011)

and exploring organizational and technological issues

in software engineering as a practice (Lytras et al.,

2010).

Software developers are constantly exposed to

new technology and techniques, and their profession

requires collaboration and cooperation with a variety

of actors, stakeholders, and disciplines. Therefore, it

is important to understand software engineering from

the point of view of software teams within software

companies. To build an effective team, it is impor-

tant to consider the interests, needs, and desires of all

team members. When difﬁculties arise, it is important

to ﬁnd ways to mediate and compromise. In this sec-

tion, we will discuss a series of psychological factors

that directly affect team performance.

Effort measurement, which includes mental and

physical effort, is an important psychological fac-

tor to consider when evaluating the productivity of

a software team and understanding intellectual per-

formance (Mulder, 1986; Farina et al., 2022). This

variable can be described as the amount of time (ex-

pressed in hours) spent by team members on com-

pleting their assigned tasks, which can be divided

into technical time (such as design, debugging, cod-

ing, and testing) and non-technical time (such as team

meetings, seminars, and consultations). Several re-

searchers (Trendowicz et al., 2008; Dlamini et al.,

2022) have shown that it is crucial to measure and

specify such efforts in order to understand how soft-

ware teams work. All types of efforts should be in-

cluded in the total amount of working hours reported

and should be correlated with product improvement,

both in terms of technical and non-technical efforts.

Team Leader: The behavior of the team leader is

another important psychological systemic factor that

can greatly impact the performance of software devel-

opment teams (Acu

na et al., 2008). The team leader’s

behavior, as shown by (Srivastava et al., 2006) can

have a major inﬂuence on team members’ productiv-

ity, creating an environment that is conducive to effec-

tive communication (Sudhakar et al., 2011), learning,

and dedication. Therefore, it is crucial to consider

the team leader’s behavior when trying to understand

the performance of software teams (Srivastava et al.,

2006).

Based on the above, psychological systemic think-

ing can help us understand some of the dynamics that

affect the performance of software teams. With this

understanding, we can now examine the contributions

that sociological systemic thinking can make to soft-

ware engineering.

2.2 Sociological Systemic Thinking

Sociological systemic thinking primarily deals with

aspects of software development in the context of

technologically and culturally scaffolded artifacts,

and with a focus on communication (Stichweh, 2011).

This theory emphasizes the importance of under-

standing the dynamics behind the production of cul-

tural artifacts, particularly within social and collabo-

rative institutions (Parsons, 1977). The origins of this

theory can be traced back to the work of philosophers

and social scientists (Offer, 2010; Alexander, 1990),

but a discussion of the roots of sociological systemic

thinking is beyond the scope of this paper. In this

section, we will focus on identifying a number of so-

ciological factors that can potentially affect software

teams and discuss some that we believe to be the most

important.

2.2.1 Team Size

The term “team size” has been used loosely in sociol-

ogy to refer to both small groups of individuals who

interact productively and larger groups of individu-

als who share a common identity (McGrath, 1984). A

more restrictive deﬁnition of a team, used in team pro-

cess studies, is a group of people formed speciﬁcally

for research, without prior relations among its mem-

bers. According to sociological systemic thinking, an

effective and productive team should have a balanced

size, not too big and not too small (Cooley, 1992).

A small group may not have the variety of skills it

needs to operate well, while large teams may lead to

decreased participation and dedication to the project.

The optimal team size also depends on factors such as

management skills, type of project, and personality of

the group (Lee et al., 2003). It is generally considered

that teams with 5 to 10 people are most effective, but

exceptions can exist.

2.2.2 Team Cohesion and Collaboration

Team cohesion refers to the quality and degree of the

relationships between members of a team. This re-

lationship creates a bond among team members and

enables them to work together effectively to achieve

team objectives. Cohesion is essential for building

productive collaborative activities (Kang et al., 2011).

The productivity of a software development team

(Bhardwaj and Rana, 2016) is greatly affected by the

level of teamwork and cooperation within the team.

Therefore, it is important for the program manager to

create an environment that promotes teamwork and

encourages cooperation (Kang et al., 2011) (Clincy,

2003).

A Reﬂection on the Use of Systemic Thinking in Software Development

523

2.2.3 Communication

Communication is crucial for software teams (Cian-

carini et al., 2021b; Ciancarini et al., 2021a; Kruglov,

2021), because, without effective communication,

team members will not be able to effectively utilize

the resources available to them, regardless of how

good these resources are (Ciancarini et al., 2023). The

importance of communication is often seen in face-to-

face meetings (Bonner, 1959; Hare, 1994; Freeman,

1992; Stogdill, 1959; Locke et al., 1981), as without

this type of interaction, the sharing of information will

not happen.

However, the effectiveness of communication is

not limited to human interactions. It is also greatly

inﬂuenced by external factors such as the workplace

and other variables previously discussed, such as co-

hesion and collaboration.

The use of various technological tools can also

greatly impact communicative interactions, by en-

abling more ﬂexible cycles and designs (Finholt et al.,

1990; Davidow, 1992). For example, studies on

remote brainstorming have shown that larger web-

based brainstorming groups can generate more ideas

than smaller groups (Connolly, 1997). Similarly, re-

search suggests that computer-mediated communica-

tion can greatly reduce the strategic issues that arise

in traditional social settings (Nunamaker et al., 1991;

Bugayenko et al., 2022b; Bugayenko et al., 2022a).

After explaining how psychological and sociolog-

ical systemic thinking can be used to understand the

impact of external factors on software engineering

teams, we present our experimental protocol, which is

designed to test and support our hypothesis that sys-

temic thinking can help us understand how software

teams operate, achieve their goals, and meet the goals

of the organizations, companies, and institutions for

which they work.

3 METHODOLOGY

To expand on our research, we conducted an on-

line survey with software developers in three differ-

ent countries (Nepal, Russia, and Luxembourg). The

purpose of the survey was to gather more objective

opinions and perspectives on the topic we examined

in this paper. The countries for the online survey were

selected based on one of the authors’ personal back-

grounds, as he is from Nepal, studied in Russia, and

currently resides in Luxembourg. Next, we will pro-

vide an overview of the structure of our survey.

We employed qualitative research for our initial

study. This approach is typically used to understand

perspectives and opinions. It provides insight into

various issues and helps to generate concepts or the-

ories for future quantitative research. The qualitative

method allows for a deeper analysis of problems and

can reveal new ideas and personal views in our study.

This method employs various unstructured or semi-

structured methods for data collection such as online

surveys. It involves analyzing responses to identify is-

sues and develop solutions. Since our research com-

bines technological and behavioral elements and in-

cludes studying the responses and feedback from par-

ticipants, a qualitative approach was deemed most ap-

propriate.

3.1 The Survey

Surveys are a useful tool for collecting data on de-

mographics and short-answer responses from a large

number of people. In this study, surveys were used to

gather and reﬁne the information that was previously

obtained through reviewing relevant literature.

The survey we created in this study aimed to pro-

vide answers to our hypothesis; that psychological

and sociological systemic thinking can assist us in un-

derstanding the workings and operations of developer

teams.

The survey consisted of a series of questions

(combining multiple choice and numerical responses)

that were used to gauge whether the participants

agreed or disagreed with the notion that speciﬁc sys-

temic factors can signiﬁcantly impact their perfor-

mance. It also aimed to identify and measure (using

a Likert scale (Allen and Seaman, 2007)) the relative

importance of these factors. The survey took no more

than 30 minutes to complete (with an average actual

time of 25 minutes).

As mentioned, the questions contained in our

questionnaire for the survey have been taken and

modiﬁed from (Lamb, 2009). They have been also

inspired, as noted above, by discussions with experts

in the ﬁeld of systemic thinking.

The questionnaire for this study was designed in

a way to ensure that the responses received would

be valuable in addressing our research questions.

This was done by following established best practices

(Bentler et al., 1971; Bradburn and Sudman, 2004)

within the ﬁeld and by getting feedback from experts

with relevant experience. The expert was the one with

experience in using systemic thinking in STEM edu-

cation.

The survey participants were chosen to bring a

practical perspective on performance indicators in

their work environment. They were able to complete

the survey online for about a month and gave permis-

ENASE 2023 - 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering

524

sion for the author to use and share their responses. 50

software developers from different tech companies in

Russia, Nepal, and Luxembourg participated, most of

whom provided information about their experience in

the ﬁeld. 12 had over 11 years of experience, 24 had

5-9 years, and 14 had less than 5 years. Additional

information about their educational background was

also collected, with 17 being graduate students, 16

being undergraduate students, 13 being master’s stu-

dents, and 4 being Ph.D. students.

The respondents were informed of the study’s pur-

pose and asked to identify themselves so researchers

could relate their responses to information from the

company. They were assured that their company

would only receive summary results and that their pri-

vacy would be protected. Prior to the experiment,

each organization involved sent a letter to the partic-

ipating employee guaranteeing conﬁdentiality. The

companies also provided conﬁdential performance

ratings of the subjects, allowing for a comparison be-

tween an independent assessment of performance and

the self-reported measure from the respondents.

4 ANALYSIS OF THE

COLLECTED DATA

We used basic statistics using ordinal scales and cod-

ing procedures to analyze the responses we gathered

from the questionnaires. We note here that our re-

search is mostly observational. We also note that ﬁnd-

ing subjects willing to participate in a study like this

is extremely difﬁcult, and it is even more difﬁcult be-

cause the emphasis of our work is on software man-

agers and engineers involved in complex and large-

scale projects.

From the survey, we analyzed the responses and

allocated extracts that characterized the main pattern

and divided it into categories and sub-categories as

shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Identiﬁed categories and sub categories (systemic

factors).

Categories Sub Categories (systemic factors)

1) Individ-

ual

1.1) Focus of attention

1.2) Interconnection

1.3) Adaptability

2) Software

Team

2.1) Communication

2.2) Project Complexity

2.3) Team Leader

3) Software

Firm

3.1) Administrative Change

3.2) Relationship with Clients

3.3) Work Environment

According to the online survey, many of the psy-

chological and sociological factors identiﬁed by re-

searchers as being characteristic of systemic thinking

in Section 2, are not taken into account by software

development ﬁrms and teams. These variables though

can have a positive effect on the success of software

development teams and can assist software compa-

nies in better understanding their software teams. It is

therefore important for businesses to make sure they

understand how these variables affect their developers

and improve their performance.

8 of the 50 people in the survey referred to tech-

nical aspects of engineering a system: e.g., manage-

ment, technical depth of teams, producing a product

or ﬁnding interfaces. The remaining people referred

to communication, team interactions, and social lead-

ership. This highlights the fact that systemic thinking

is deeply ingrained in the daily activities of software

engineers and therefore demonstrates the importance

of psychological and sociological factors in develop-

ers’ teams.

Commonly occurring phrases and ideas were

tagged, organized, and combined when appropriate,

resulting in a set of commonly cited codes. After

a set of unique codes was identiﬁed (open coding)

the codes were reorganized into categories (axial cod-

ing), grouping similar code constructs and provid-

ing greater explanatory power. Axial coding resulted

in three main categories: individual, software team,

and software ﬁrms as shown in Table 1. These cat-

egories were further developed into subcategories as

informed by the critical constructs identiﬁed in the lit-

erature review discussed above.

5 SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS

Our literature review in Section 2 revealed that vari-

ous psychological and sociological factors associated

with systemic thinking are present in the operations

of software development individuals, teams, and com-

panies. These factors, as outlined in Section 4 , lead

to a holistic approach to problem-solving and success

in their work and projects. However, most compa-

nies and team members were not aware that they were

utilizing systemic thinking in their daily projects and

even stated that it was not practiced in their company,

yet they recognized the signiﬁcance of the related psy-

chological and sociological factors such as commu-

nication and collaboration, indicating at least a basic

level of understanding of its relevance.

Furthermore, the study of interview transcripts re-

vealed three distinct categories of the use of sys-

temic thinking in software development, which can

A Reﬂection on the Use of Systemic Thinking in Software Development

525

be roughly linked to individuals, teams, and corpo-

rations (as shown in Table 1). These categories are

not mutually exclusive, and multiple perspectives on

the same event may be included. These categories are

examined in greater detail in the subsequent sections,

which are loosely organized based on the problem de-

scription, context, and identify patterns.

Below, we discuss all the identiﬁed patterns from

the survey:

Focus of Attention: Focus of attention is about the

factors that a team leader takes into account when

making decisions. When providing feedback or mak-

ing crucial choices, some individuals concentrate on

certain aspects of the problem, while others evaluate

the available information holistically. Systemic think-

ing necessitates a readiness to comprehend the entire

task under examination as having various and unique

qualities and characteristics (so it requires both a re-

ductionist and a holistic perspective).

Interconnection: To make sound decisions, man-

agers must comprehend how the parts within the

projects they manage are interrelated. It’s also im-

portant for members of the project to understand how

the decisions made by marketing managers, operation

and account departments, or executives interrelate and

how these choices affect the company’s overall re-

sults. This is reﬂected in the interview transcripts by

various statements that evaluate how the respondents

perceived the relationship between the whole and the

parts. Furthermore, when working on a project or

sprint, most of the team members involved reported

that they enjoyed seeing how their speciﬁc tasks ﬁt

into the larger project.

Adaptability: Systemic thinking emphasizes that

team members should be creative and responsive

to changing conditions when addressing challenges.

This requires both the ability and the willingness to

be adaptable. Skilled leaders tend to frame the situa-

tions they encounter in a way that allows for a nimble

and ﬂexible response. It’s common for experienced

decision-makers (leaders) to have a variety of suit-

able feedback (insights) for a speciﬁc issue. These

insights are built up over time and can be accessed

as needed. This enhances their personal adaptability

and their ability to swiftly solve problems. In tack-

ling a difﬁculty, the leader reﬂects on various past ex-

periences and works to ﬁnd an innovative solution.

This aspect is reﬂected in the interview transcripts

by various statements that evaluate the level of rigid-

ity or ﬂexibility with which participants completed

projects/sprints.

Communication: Many software companies im-

plemented distributed teams of software engineers in

their daily operations. Some tech ﬁrms began imple-

menting distributed teams after our research. By ana-

lyzing the responses from the participants in our sur-

vey, we can conclude that communication was cited

by more than two-thirds of the subjects as an area that

could be improved by taking into account psycholog-

ical and sociological systemic factors.

Project Intricacy: Project complexity is deter-

mined by the difﬁculty in understanding how a par-

ticular project is being executed and can take many

forms. Examples of complexity include coherent

complexity, the complexity of the business domain,

and computational and systemic complexity. Com-

plexity and productivity have an inverse relationship.

Many responses indicated that organizations had to

narrow their focus on certain occasions when dealing

with complex issues. Examples of project complex-

ity include cost and time evaluation of construction

activities. To effectively deal with complexity, it is

important to understand the intricacy of the problem

and develop solutions for software engineering issues

that take into account the individual (e.g.“character”),

the team (e.g.“standards”), and the software company

(e.g.“community”).

Team leader: The behavior of the team leader is

crucial for productivity. Team leaders can improve

team performance by, for example, promoting a mind-

set that promotes focused communication, commit-

ment, and motivation. Therefore, it is essential to

consider team leadership when attempting to under-

stand the performance of software teams. Addition-

ally, the relationship between teamwork and the nec-

essary skills for task recognition, planning, and train-

ing should be evaluated as consistently as possible.

Administrative Change: Many responses men-

tioned organizational change as an area where liv-

ing systems should be taken into account. It was in-

teresting to see how the changes were implemented

and why they were made. The participants in the

study suggested that administrative changes in soft-

ware ﬁrms are more frequent than in other types of

companies and that “staff should ﬁgure out how to

adapt to changes since they happened constantly.” Al-

though the participants couldn’t explain the reason for

the high rate of change, they stated that “it is in the na-

ture of software engineering” and that software devel-

opment cycles, such as the agile method of work, “are

a way of coping with changes.” However, the under-

standing that ”changes can happen at any moment”

can put pressure on employees, which can be over-

whelming. Many respondents also said that initia-

tives undergoing administrative change rarely “reach

all the way” and get lost along the way for unex-

plained reasons. Another participant agreed with this

statement and said that “teams and individuals are

ENASE 2023 - 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering

526

powerful elements that are normally unaffected by

administrative changes.” The participants had some

ideas about what kind of awareness they would need

to help deal with ambiguous administrative change is-

sues. However, the common idea was that the prob-

lems could not be solved simply by focusing on prac-

tical issues. They required a multidisciplinary ap-

proach, the type of approach proposed by systemic

thinking.

Relationship with clients: The participants agreed

that the supplier-customer relationship has a signif-

icant impact on the likelihood of a successful out-

come. Some believed that the relationship could posi-

tively inﬂuence team motivation. One issue identiﬁed

with client relations was that software releases (updat-

ing software versions) often resulted in organizational

changes for the customer. According to the partici-

pants, these changes can threaten the relationship be-

tween clients and employees. As a result, the workers

may develop a hostile attitude towards the supplier as

a psychological defense mechanism. If not handled

properly, this can negatively impact collaboration be-

tween the parties involved.

Work Environment: The physical work environ-

ment can have a positive effect on the performance

and efﬁciency of a software team. For example:

1. A work environment that promotes collaboration

can boost productivity.

2. Resources such as computer networks and soft-

ware tools are essential for the workplace.

3. These resources can facilitate more effective col-

laboration, team service, and individual cohesion,

all of which have a signiﬁcant positive impact on

performance.

4. Software industrial facilities are conditions that

encourage the standardization of methods and

software measurement concepts.

This can also signiﬁcantly inﬂuence teams’ efﬁciency

as well as productivity.

6 CONCLUSION

This study has revealed the importance of systemic

thinking in software development. The psychologi-

cal and sociological factors associated with systemic

thinking, such as communication and collaboration,

were found to be present in the operations of soft-

ware development individuals, teams, and compa-

nies. The study also identiﬁed three distinct cate-

gories of the use of systemic thinking in software de-

velopment, which can be linked to individuals, teams,

and corporations. Additionally, it was found that

team leader behavior plays a crucial role in produc-

tivity and that organizational change can be a chal-

lenging environment. Participants also agreed that the

supplier-customer relationship has a signiﬁcant im-

pact on the outcome and the physical work environ-

ment can have a positive effect on the performance

and efﬁciency of a software team. These ﬁndings

highlight the need for a multidisciplinary approach,

as proposed by systemic thinking, to effectively deal

with the complexities and challenges in software de-

velopment.

While this study provides valuable insights into

the role of systemic thinking in software develop-

ment, it has several limitations. One limitation is that

the study is based on a small sample of participants

and may not be generalizable to the larger popula-

tion of software development companies. Addition-

ally, the study focused only on the perception of the

participants, further research with objective measures

could provide a more comprehensive understanding

of the topic. Another limitation is that the study

only focused on one perspective of systemic thinking

which is the psychological and sociological factors,

further research could explore other aspects of sys-

temic thinking such as technical and organizational

factors.

Future research could also explore the effects of

systemic thinking on the performance and efﬁciency

of software development teams in a more controlled

setting. Additionally, it would be interesting to in-

vestigate how different software development meth-

ods, such as Agile and Waterfall, affect the use of

systemic thinking. Moreover, future research could

also investigate the impact of different team structures

and remote working on the use of systemic thinking

in software development. These studies could provide

a more in-depth understanding of the role of systemic

thinking in software development and help organiza-

tions to improve their performance and efﬁciency.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is supported by the Russian Science

Foundation, Grant No. 22-21-00494.

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