Generating testable hypotheses from tacit knowledge for high productivity computing
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Software engineering for high performance computing system applications
The use of group support systems in focus groups: Information technology meets qualitative research
Computers in Human Behavior
Exploring consumer adoption of mobile payments - A qualitative study
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
End-user privacy in human-computer interaction
Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction
Requirements engineering process improvement: a knowledge transfer experience
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM symposium on Applied computing
Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Association Francophone d'Interaction Homme-Machine
An industrial case of exploiting product line architectures in agile software development
Proceedings of the 13th International Software Product Line Conference
QoSA'07 Proceedings of the Quality of software architectures 3rd international conference on Software architectures, components, and applications
A focus group study on inter-organizational ERP requirements engineering practices
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
SPLC'10 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Software product lines: going beyond
Software engineering education: A study on conducting collaborative senior project development
Journal of Systems and Software
The notion of variability in software architecture: results from a preliminary exploratory study
Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Variability Modeling of Software-Intensive Systems
Proposing an ISO/IEC 15504-2 compliant method for process capability/maturity models customization
PROFES'11 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Product-focused software process improvement
A documentation framework for architecture decisions
Journal of Systems and Software
Studying volatility predictors in open source software
Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE international symposium on Empirical software engineering and measurement
International Journal of Information System Modeling and Design
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems
Hi-index | 0.00 |
This paper reflects on three cases where the focus group method was used to obtain feedback and experiences from software engineering practitioners and application users. The focus group method and its background are presented, the method's weaknesses and strengths are discussed, and guidelines are provided for how to use the method in the software engineering context. Furthermore, the results of the three studies conducted are highlighted and the paper concludes in a discussion on the applicability of the method for this type of research. In summary, the focus group method is a cost-effective and quick empirical research approach for obtaining qualitative insights and feedback from practitioners. It can be used in several phases and types of research. However, a major limitation of the method is that it is useful only in studying concepts that can be understood by participants in a limited time. We also recommend that in the software engineering context, the method should be used with sufficient empirical rigor.