Towards the participant observation of emotions in software development teams

Emotions, moods and temperament influence our behaviour in every aspect of life. Until now plenty of research has been conducted and many theories have been proposed to explain the role of emotions within the working environment. However, in the field of software engineering, interest in the role of human factors in the process of software development is relatively new. In the paper the research design process that has been proposed details a novel approach using the method of participant observation in order to investigate the role of emotions in IT projects. The participant observation protocol presented was developed in an iterative manner, where successive phases were validated in two preliminary studies.