Scientific Software Teams Collegeville Workshop 2021: Special Issue of IEEE CiSE

The special issue of Computing in Science and Engineering (CiSE), published in May-June 2022, focused on a variety of articles selected from over 26 white papers and teatime submissions to the Collegeville Workshop 2021 (CW21). Collegeville Workshop Series on Scientific Software brings together members from the academic, industry, and research laboratory communities to discuss important and emerging topics in the development and use of software for scientific discovery. The theme of CW21 was to explore the role of scientific software teams and to reflect on the approaches they have used, exchange thoughts and experiences toward the goal of better characterizing team structures and dynamics, and create and share insights into how scientific software teams can become more effective and efficient. Three major themes were highlighted at the workshop: experiences and challenges of software teams, technical approaches for improving teams, and cultural approaches for improvement. The articles in this special issue touch on all three themes, providing insight and strategies for people who want to understand and improve how team-based scientific software is developed and used.

The article written by the PETSc development team gives good insight on how efficient software teams that are distributed geographically operate. Also of interest is the article focused on integrating interns into software teams and onboarding new members. The article focusing on persona-based approaches to software quality practice incentivization is helpful for readers looking at how to improve scientific software team policies and practices. The special issue has several other interesting articles on the organization and functioning of small and large teams.

Overall, this special issue is an excellent read for anyone working as part of or leading scientific software teams.