A Diagnoses Instrument for Software Engineers’ Soft Skills

Abstract

The use of Agile Methodologies among the Software Development Projects have beingin creasing in recent years. These methodologies have a set of values and principles which are people-centered, increasing the importance of the people factors for the success of projects using Agile methodologies. However, these factors are not fully understood by practitioners who work within Agile teams. This reality created a gap between what the companies are expecting from their Software Engineers and whatthey really know, in terms of Soft Skills, especially in their first-time job. Therefore, basedon a Literature Review and on the opinion of the Software Engineers working withinAgile Teams in the Digital Port of Recife, this work developed the MVP of an instrument capable of making a self evaluation of the 8 most important Soft Skills for a Software Engineer working in an Agile environment. Raising awareness about the relevance ofthe Soft Skills for the career of a Software Engineer, highlighting what are the mostrelevant Soft Skills for them and also reducing the existent gap in the IT job market.Moreover, during this study it was created a Soft Skill Catalog, containing the synonyms and the definitions of these Soft Skills found in the Literature. Finally, it was possible to realize the relevance of the Soft Skills for the Software Engineers where Leader ship and Negotiation were the two less important and Communication was the most important and the developed instrument came out as an extremely important instrument, specially for the Software Engineers in the beginning of the career. More over, it was also possible to realize that there aren’t enough activities inside the companies to improve the Soft Skills of their Software Engineers and the existent activities are not aligned with their expectations.