Keynote´s title: Using ethnography in empirical software engineering

Ethnography is a powerful qualitative empirical approach which can be used to understand and hence improve work practice. Ethnographically-informed methods are widely adopted in the Social Sciences but are not so popular with software engineering researchers. As with many inter-disciplinary approaches, ethnographic methods can be misunderstood and misapplied, leading to results being dismissed with a “so what?” response. Drawing on my own and other´s experience of applying this approach in empirical studies of software practice, I will provide an overview of the role of ethnography in Software Engineering research. I will describe the use of ethnographic methods as a means to provide an in-depth understanding of the socio-technological realities surrounding everyday software development practice. The knowledge gained can be used to understand developers´ work practices, to inform the development of new processes, methods and tools, and to evaluate and evolve existing practices.