Software tasks: Intellectual or clerical?

There are two conflicting views of the complexity of software development: ‘anyone can do it’, or ‘it is the most complex activity the human mind has ever undertaken’. We address this difference empirically in two exploratory studies that examined the intellectual (non-routine) and clerical (routine) nature of software tasks. The first study sought to determine the proportion of software tasks that can be regarded as intellectual or clerical in nature. Taxonomics of software tasks were classified based on the assessment of highly experienced raters. The second study examined the length of time novice systems analysts spent in carrying out tasks during the information requirements specification phase of the systems development life cycle. The experiment used protocol and videotape analysis. Results show that the numbers of intellectual tasks in software development, and the time spent on those tasks, both predominate over clerical tasks by 4 to 1. These initial results suggest that even simple tasks are more intellectual than the ‘anyone can do it’ or the ‘software development can be automated’ viewpoints frequently expressed in the literature.