
New study: Software teams with more women communicate better - singron
https://www.getclockwise.com/blog/new-study-software-teams-with-more-women-communicate-better
======
hn_throwaway_99
Does anyone have access to the original paper? From the look at this article,
I am extremely curious as to how they quantified what they defined as
"community smells". From the article:

\----

For the study, the authors looked at four types of community smells:

1\. Organizational Silos. Groups in the community don’t communicate with each
other, except through one or two of their respective members.

2\. Black Clouds. Community members are overloaded with information because
communication isn’t structured well.

3\. Lone Wolves. Defiant, disrespectful contributors won’t listen to others.

4\. Bottlenecks. One team member wants to be the only way information moves
between sub-communities.

Previous studies have shown that women are fundamental to reducing community
smells and avoiding accumulating social debt for teams in other industries.
But these studies show that women increase team efficiency and organizational
quality on software engineering teams specifically. Teams with no women have 7
mean community smells compared to 3 for teams with at least one woman. These
results are statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) and have a large effect
size (d=0.68).

\----

~~~
Pfhreak
This appears to be it: [https://www.win.tue.nl/~aserebre/IEEESWGenderSmells-
preprint...](https://www.win.tue.nl/~aserebre/IEEESWGenderSmells-preprint.pdf)

~~~
ghostpepper
Has this been proof-read? There's a grammatical error in the second sentence
on the first page.

> we found [...] a strictly connection between gender diversity and
> communication patterns

Obviously this doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the research but it
is jarring to the reader and makes one question what else about the paper has
not been checked over before publication

~~~
Pfhreak
I'm not sure. I found it by Googling. I think, given there are several authors
listed that, yes, it has been proof-read.

Generally I wouldn't consider the occasional typo to be indicative of the
quality of the underlying research. Zooming in on a minor detail in an attempt
to paint the paper negatively seems needlessly pedantic, but that's just my
opinion.

~~~
ghostpepper
I wasn't attempting to paint anything. Quality issues are extra-egregious when
they're visible on the first page, but that's just my opinion.

------
jph
"As an important output of our survey, participants highlighted that besides
technical expertise good communication skills are fundamental for developers
within a software team ."

Absolutely true in my experience. A high-performing team of majority women
coached me to have our teams write "ground rules" for team communication. The
improvement was a big leap forward. Many example ground rules are in my git
repo:

[https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules](https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules)

~~~
Pfhreak
> good communication skills are fundamental for developers within a software
> team

This is absolutely true. Fundamentally, a great engineer is doing a TON of
communicating -- writing technical designs, whiteboarding different
approaches, explaining reasoning in code reviews, breaking down tasks for more
junior engineers, coaching and mentoring others, interviewing... and about a
million other things. The role of communication only increases as the problem
complexity and scope increases.

------
twomoretime
This is dangerous junk science and is only having a counterproductive effect
on gender relations by cheapening the achievements of women.

The same goes for other minorities who are treated like lesser people who need
handouts.

This is the softest of sciences, minimally quantitative, non-experimentally
verifiable and therefore subject to massive institutional bias - the same way
that proponents of forced equity believe that the institutions they are
fighting with have developed their own biases.

Equality of opportunity does not imply equality of outcome. But it doesn't
matter - this post will likely be flagged because our own institution is
increasingly biased toward certain unacceptable viewpoints - to the degree
that we forbid discussion on nearly every popular forum. But you're only
emboldening and recruiting extremists when you silence an entire alternative
point of view.

Edit: Let me explain further, and justify my use of the word "dangerous."
Let's forget for a moment the specific topic at hand. Imagine a field of study
which is strongly influencing corporate and, local, state, and federal policy,
which is simultaneously immune from criticism because of cultural norms.

That is where all of these pro-diversity and pro-inclusion studies are coming
from. I'm not necessarily suggesting that they're wrong - only that
systematically, institutionally, this is poor science and possibly leading
society down a suboptimal path.

One side of the diversity and inclusion discussion is forbidden. We are
forced, top down, to take it as a given that this is how things should be
done. I cannot support alternative viewpoints with sources because researchers
who would publish anything against the grain would be, in modern parlance,
cancelled.

~~~
Pfhreak
Here's the study [1]. If you want to discuss it, address specifics from it.
Right now, you are simply coming in and spouting your personal political
opinions in a detached and needlessly argumentative way.

[1] [https://www.win.tue.nl/~aserebre/IEEESWGenderSmells-
preprint...](https://www.win.tue.nl/~aserebre/IEEESWGenderSmells-preprint.pdf)

~~~
twomoretime
Thank you for linking. Now I can confirm that the study is, frankly, bullshit.
Ignoring the ridiculous sample size of 34, the "smells" are totally
subjective. In fact one could argue in favor of each of them - this reminds me
of open concept cargo culting: Organizational Silo. Siloed groups in the
community that do not communicate with each other, except through one or two
of their respective members;

>1\. Organizational Silo. Siloed groups in the community that do not
communicate with each other, except through one or two of their respective
members;

If I'm working on team A I don't need to know what literally every person on
every other team is doing.

>2\. Black Cloud. There is an excessive information overload due to the lack
of structured communication. This might lead to a huge increase of data
exchanges across a community;

What? Lack of communication leads to excessive information? That doesn't even
make sense.

>3\. Lone Wolf. Unsanctioned or defiant contributors who work in an
irrespective manner or regardless of their team;

Where I'm from we call this initiative. I've been rewarded for showing it my
entire life. This is not black and white.

>4\. Radio Silence. One team member interposes themselves into every formal
communication across two or more sub-communities with little or no flexibility
to introduce other parallel channels.

I don't even understand what this means.

None of the first three points are black and white, as they make them out to
be. This is pure ideologically driven data mining playing off the stereotype
of women being better communicators. Ironic.

------
blululu
For the actual research, the cited paper can be found here:
[https://dibt.unimol.it/staff/fpalomba/documents/C43.pdf](https://dibt.unimol.it/staff/fpalomba/documents/C43.pdf)

------
david38
On one hand women have innately different traits than men (but only good ones,
except being physically stronger).

On the other, women and MTF trans are the same because it’s all about how you
feel and any differences are because of the patriarchy.

Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.

Hopefully such junk science stops being published. If there is a way of
communicating that’s better for both guys and girls, and some of both are
capable of doing it, then it can be taught to both with most learning it.

Unless you’re going to claim most guys are simply incapable of reading social
queues, or female social queues (excluding sexual attraction, where intent is
often hidden).

------
pdubs1
News flash:

Women are more people-oriented while men are more thing-oriented, on average
(1, 2).

I don't think this is grounds for "All men should communicate like women" or

"Women's style of communication is more productive in [name some male-oriented
group]", or "We should prioritize women's communication style in [highly
technical groups which rarely include women due to biologically factual
statistical differences in occupational orientation __^ __] ", which is a
dubious proposition.

( __^ __= differences between women and women in interest levels and at the
tails of achievement in "thing"/"systems" oriented technology occupations --
see citations 1 & 2)

Notice the pattern.

Look at how much usage of words related to "patriarchy", "misogyny",
"institutional racism", "diversity and inclusion", "social justice" have
increased in NYT and other mainstream media sources from 2010-2020 (3, 4).

We see this again and again in media. Here is some hard data on this mentality
and its pervasion of politics, media, entertainment, -- an obvious social
engineering effort to anyone paying attention over the last 10-15 years.

Interestingly enough OP's particular study would not be here on HN if it had
any other result.

I highly doubt a sample size of 34 for something as ridiculous sounding as
"community smell" is going to be in anyway groundbreaking, at least when
compared to actual substantial research on the topic of male vs female
occupational interests.

The 2nd study here has 500,000 participants, for example. Not 34.

Bottom line: Identity politics is a worthless, and came into vogue in order to
dissolve the Occupy Wallstreet movement which sprang up in the aftermath of
the 2008-early 2010's Recession. (5).

[1] Gendered Occupational Interests: Prenatal Androgen Effects on
Psychological Orientation to Things Versus People --
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/)

[2] Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in
Interests --
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Things_Women_and_People_A_Meta-
Analysis_of_Sex_Differences_in_Interests)

[3] The NYTimes is Woke "Many trends develop over decades but I’ve never seen
change so rapid as the breathtaking success of what one might call social
justice concerns. Beginning around 2010-2014 there appears to have been a
inflection point. Here from Zach Goldberg on twitter are various words drawn
from Lexis-Nexis."
[https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/th...](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/the-
nytimes-is-woke.html)

[4] Zach Goldberg on twitter "1/n Spent some time on LexisNexis over the
weekend. Depending on your political orientation, what follows will either
disturb or encourage you. But regardless of political orientation, I'm sure we
can all say 'holy fucking shit'"
[https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888](https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888)

[5] Discussion on how identity politics conveniently sprang up as a counter-
movement to deliberately disrupt up the Occupy Wallstreet movement, which is
corroborated by the timelines of sources 3 and 4 above.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1wecyn/identity...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1wecyn/identity_politics_killed_occupy_wall_street/)

~~~
pdubs1
Re: Source 3 -- Here is a better view of one of the images in their article.

It shows data for SJW-related buzz words-- word frequency over time.

[https://fee.org/media/34425/nyt.jpg](https://fee.org/media/34425/nyt.jpg)

------
all_factz
Absolutely shocking, women are better at communicating than men.

~~~
pdubs1
Shocking: Men and women aren't equal.

~~~
twomoretime
Which is exactly what the conclusions of the study imply...

In which case, if men and women do not on average perform equally at given
tasks, there's no reason to expect gender parity or even pay parity in
meritocratic systems.

That's an unspoken contradiction inmplied by many of these studies. But I
haven't seen any researcher mention it recently, for increasingly obvious
reasons.

~~~
all_factz
Well, they seem to be better at communicating, so maybe they should be paid
MORE.

But regardless, even if there’s a difference, we have to consider nature vs.
nurture. I think men could be brought up to be more communicative, but that’s
just me.

Furthermore, it’s absurd to say the pay gap somehow reflects different
skillsets. We’re talking about unequal pay for the same work. Of course women
should be paid the same as men doing the same work as they are.

~~~
pdubs1
There are various styles of communication (such as Direct and Indirect) and in
various contexts (from highly technical, objective, to highly emotional,
subjective) and with various focuses (mission oriented vs. exploratory
brainstorming vs. goal-less sharing, etc.)

This idea that one group "seems" to be better than another seems rather vague
and unsubstantiated, as does the basis for being paid more.

Being paid is a consequence of skills, value, productivity, sales & marketing,
profitability efficiency, alongside supply and demand. If you're not marketing
your skills (or don't have skills to market), that's no one's fault but
yours-- no one owes you anything, regardless of 'communication abilities'.

~~~
all_factz
So sexism has nothing to do with the pay gap?

~~~
twomoretime
The pay gap is a myth.

The original pay gap came from a trash paper which compared average pay of
women and men across disciplines. So you had doctors and engineers grouped
with nurses and daycare workers. That was the origin of ".75¢ on the dollar".
Within most industries there is no paygap that cannot be explained by lack of
negotiation and shorter work hours, among other factors. We also take it as a
given that average performance of men and women on any task is identical, and
that's nonsense.

The paygap myth is pure propaganda.

Edit: imagine my surprise when even CBS is admitting as much!

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-
complet...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-complete-
myth/)

------
pdubs1
Sample size: 34, for determining "community smell" ahh yes how quantitative
their metrics for that must be.

Nooo, this isn't politically biased at all ;)

They didn't SEEK this outcome of their study to conform with currently in-
vogue political trends, not at all-- it's in no way biased ;)

No, no, you see-- We must get men to think, act and communicate like women!
And women to think, act and communicate like men.

Yes, that's the answer-- Confuse people into thinking they're the same while
demonizing men and elevating women with fake, clearly ideologically biased,
nonsensical studies which use terms like "community smell".

Neomarxists/diversity-outraged: Women and men are equal.

Neomarxists/diversity-outraged: Women are better than men. We need more women
in positions of power! (Search: "Entryism")

Noo... this couldn't be biased by current fad politics... not at all ;)

/sarcasm

In case anyone is wondering why Woke/SJW/identity-politics neomarxist
messaging suddenly increased in the media in the 2010-2020 timeframe--

Here's an interesting summary of how usage of woke & SJW terminology
dramatically increased in NYT publications since 2010 (alongside its increase
in other forms of media).

[https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/th...](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/the-
nytimes-is-woke.html)

The use of "Woke" & SJW terminology rapidly increased following the
dissolution of Occupy Wallstreet movement in 2010.

Hint: It's almost as if media/politics/entertainment elites are encouraging
the middle class to fight each other, rather than the top 0.001% ;)

