The concept of software craftsmanship has roots in the earliest days of computing but has received comparably little attention from the research community.As a reaction to how Agile methods were practiced and taught in industry, in 2009, the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship was formulated and published, drawing attention to the concept. Subsequent books and research papers have also elaborated on the concept.

With this dissertation, we aim to study the software craftsmanship phenomenon using empirical software engineering methods.We developed an anatomy of software craftsmanship through a systematic literature study and a longitudinal case study, following a project consisting of multiple teams over several years.We also illustrate some consequences of not following through on the espoused craftsmanship practice of managing and account for technical debt. We find that some areas exhibited high growth in technical debt, while others remained comparably idle. This indicates that it is important to keep track of existing technical debt, but repayment should consider the distribution of each kind of technical debt in the codebase.

Our studies are empirical, using mixed methods, analyzing quantitative as well as qualitative data.We used thematic coding to structure the qualitative data into themes, principles, and practices.

We provide our systematically derived anatomy of the principles and practices of software craftsmanship and discuss how these relate to other principles within software engineering in general.

Background: Books on software craftsmanship typically focus on small teams or individual behavior, and are seldom associated with large, globally distributed organizations that develop and maintain long-lived software systems.

Objective: This thesis aims to quantify the effects of systematically derived aspects of software craftsmanship in industrial settings involving large-scale organizations, with developers spread around the globe.

Method: We employ mixed-methods studies, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR), together with a longitudinal industrial case study, is used to derive an initial anatomy of software craftsmanship, and we use case studies, experience reports and action research to explore and quantify aspects of this anatomy. We use Bayesian methods to analyze data obtained via archival analysis, as well as Likert-scale data obtained froma survey using the Technology Adoption Model (TAM). Qualitative data has been analyzed using thematic coding, and we use focus groups to validate our conclusions with the studied subjects.

Results: Based on the SLR results and a industrial case study, we derive an anatomy of software craftsmanship, based on four themes, 17 principles and 47 practices. The effects of some practices from this anatomy are then quantified in subsequent articles in the thesis.

Conclusion: Based on literature and case study results, we have found a usable conceptual map of software craftsmanship. However, it remains to be seen how this map will stay relevant, in the face of how cloud migrations and AI-powered Large-Language Model tools will impact future software engineers.