The Case Study - Guest Torgeir Dingsøyr

Host Casandra Grundstrom is joined by special guest  Professor Torgeir Dingsøyr. Torgeir is professor in software engineering – agile at the Department of Computer Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is further adjunct chief research scientist at the SimulaMet research laboratory. His research has focused on teamwork and learning in software development, as well as development methods for large software projects and programs. He has published in the software engineering, information systems and project management fields.

This episode is the first in a planned ongoing series pushing towards education and educational materials in different formats. The purpose of this episode is to discuss qualitative case studies and the intended audience is aimed towards early-stage researchers such as those working on their PhD, master students, or those reflecting on what it means to do a case study. We will be unravelling some of the underlying theoretical and practical mysteries of qualitative case studies by using Torgeir's explanatory (2023) and exploratory (2018) case studies in the context of software development projects. It is recommended to read both of these articles linked below first to better follow along the examples and implications. The theoretical discussion is guided by Yin's (2011) 6-stage process model: plan, design, prepare, collect, analyze, and share.

References:
Explanatory case study https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-022-10230-6
Dingsøyr, T., Bjørnson, F. O., Schrof, J., & Sporsem, T. (2023). A longitudinal explanatory case study of coordination in a very large development programme: the impact of transitioning from a first-to a second-generation large-scale agile development method. Empirical Software Engineering, 28(1), 1-49.

Exploratory case study https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-017-9524-2
Dingsøyr, T., Moe, N. B., Fægri, T. E., & Seim, E. A. (2018). Exploring software development at the very large-scale: a revelatory case study and research agenda for agile method adaptation. Empirical Software Engineering, 23, 490-520. 

Dingsøyr, T., Nerur, S., Balijepally, V., and Moe, N. B., (2012). A Decade of Agile Methodologies: Towards Explaining Agile Software Development. Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 85, pp. 1213-1221.

Wohlin, C. (2021). Case Study Research in Software Engineering—It is a Case, and it is a Study, but is it a Case Study?. Information and Software Technology, 133, 106514.

Yin, R. K. (2011). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. 6th Eds. Sage.