Investigating Social Aspects in Software Development Teams — A Research Preview

The digital transformation affects the way we live and work in today's society. It brings new opportunities but also challenges that require reflection and improvement of existing actions and procedures. Against this background, “Social Software Engineering” represents a highly interesting and relevant field of research that deals with social aspects both from the viewpoint of SE processes and from the viewpoint of the developed software. The research agenda proposed in this research preview strives to address challenges concerning social (and psychological) aspects from the viewpoint of software development teams that affect the collaboration and communication within the teams. Such challenges have been experienced, among others, in a large ongoing research project aimed at addressing the specific needs of people living in rural areas with the help of digital solutions. With the outlined roadmap of research questions and related activities, we aim to contribute to the body of established methods and processes supporting team collaboration and communication (with explicit consideration of social aspects) and to motivate further research in the community.