skip to main content
10.1145/2897586.2897598acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesicseConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Decision-making in software project management: a qualitative case study of a private organization

Published: 14 May 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Context: In software project management, the decision-making process is a complex set of tasks largely based on specific knowledge and individual cultural background, as well as human relations. The factors that affect the decisions of the software project managers (SPMs) and their potential consequences require attention because project delays and failures are usually related to a series of poor decisions. Objective: To understand how SPMs make decisions based on how they interpret their experiences in the workplace, and also to identify antecedents and consequences of those decisions in order to increase the effectiveness of project management. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with SPMs within a Brazilian large private organization. The data was analyzed using techniques from grounded theory approach. Results: We found that decision-making in software project management is based on knowledge sharing in which the SPM acts as a facilitator before making decisions. This phenomenon is influenced by individual factors, such as experience, communication, negotiation, self-control and systemic view of the project and by contextual factors such as the autonomy of the SPM and team members' technical competence. Also, these factors are mediated by cognitive biases. Conclusions: Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent in software projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting decisions in an argument-driven way.

References

[1]
Lundin, R. A. and Söderholm, A. 1995. A theory of the temporary organization, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 11, No. 4, p. 437--455.
[2]
Project Management Institute. 2015. Capturing the Value of Project Management Through Decision Making.
[3]
Virine, L., and Trumper, M. 2008. Project decisions: the art and science, USA: Management Concepts Press.
[4]
Chapman, C.; Stephen, W. 2002. Managing project risk and uncertainty: A constructively simple approach to decision making. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
[5]
Schmidt, J. B., Montoya-Weiss, M. M., and Massey, A. P. 2001. New product development decision-making effectiveness: Comparing individuals, face-to-face teams, and virtual teams. Dec. Sciences, Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 575--600.
[6]
Brett, J. M. 2001. Negotiating globally: How to negotiate deals, resolve disputes, and make decisions across cultural boundaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
[7]
Cicmil, S., Williams, T., Thomas, J., and Hodgson, D. 2006. Rethinking Project Management: Researching the actuality of projects., Int J Proj Manage, Vol. 24, p. 675--686.
[8]
Lenberga, P., Feldtb, R., and Wallgrenc, L. G. 2015. Behavioral software engineering: A definition and systematic literature review, J of Sys and Software, No 107, pp. 15--37
[9]
Simon, H. A. 1959. Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science, The American Economic Review Vol. 49, No. 3
[10]
Von Neuman, J. and Morgenstein, O. 1947. Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour 2nd ed, Princeton, N. J.: Princetown University Press.
[11]
Klein, G. A., Orasanu, J., and Calderwood, R. 1993. Decision Making in Action: Models and Methods. Ablex.
[12]
Klein, G. A. 1989. Recognition Primed Decisions, In: Rouse, W. B. (Ed.), Advances in Man-Machine Research, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Vol. 5, p. 47--92.
[13]
Rasmussen, J. 1983. Skill, rules and knowledge: Signals, signs, and symbols, and other distinctions in human performance models. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-13(3), p 257--266.
[14]
Kahneman, D. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow, NY: Ed. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
[15]
SEI CMMI. 2010. SEI CMMI for Development, Version 1.3, Technical Report CMU/SEI-2010-TR-033. Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
[16]
Basili, V. R. 1996. Applying the goal/question/metric paradigm in the experience factory. Software quality assurance and measurement: a worldwide perspective. London: International Thomson.
[17]
Munch, J. and Heidrich, J. 2004. Software project control centers: concepts and approaches, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 70, No. 1--2, p. 3--19.
[18]
Abdel-Hamid, T. K. and Madnick, S. E. 1991. Software project dynamics: an integrated approach. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall.
[19]
Keil, M., Li, L., Mathiassen, L., and Zheng, G. 2008. The influence of checklists and roles on software practitioner risk perception and decision-making, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 81, No. 6, p. 908--919.
[20]
Nguyen, T. N. 2006. A decision model for managing software development projects, Information & Management, Vol. 43, No. 1, p. 63--75.
[21]
Wang, J. and Lin, Y. I. 2003. A fuzzy multicriteria group decision making approach to select configuration items for software development, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Vol. 134, No. 3, p. 343--363.
[22]
Lipshitz, R. 1993. Converging themes in the study of decision making in realistic settings. In G. A. Klein, J. Orasanu, R. Calderwood, & C. E. Zsambok (Eds.), Decision making in action: Models and methods (pp. 103--137). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
[23]
Wohlin, C. and Aurum, A. 2014. Towards a decision-making structure for selecting a research design in empirical software engineering, Empirical Software Engineering, Vol. 20, No 6, pp 1427--1455.
[24]
Merriam, S. B. 2009. Qualitative Research: a Guide to Design and Implementation, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
[25]
Runeson, P. and Host, M. 2008. Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empirical Software Engineering, 14, n. 2, p. 131--164.
[26]
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 2014. Basics of Qualitative Research Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (4th edition). Sage Publications: London.
[27]
Marinho, M., Sampaio, S., Lima, T., and Moura, H. 2014. A Systematic Review of Uncertainties in Software Project Management. International Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, Vol. 5, No 6.
[28]
Simon, H. A. 1956. Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment. Psychological Review, Vol. 63, No. 2, 129--138.
[29]
Poppendieck, M. and Poppendieck, T. 2006 Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash. Boston: Addison-Wesley Professional, pp. 32--33.
[30]
Moe, N. B., Aurum, A., and Dyba, T. 2012 Challenges of shared decision-making: A multiple case study of agile software development. Information and Software Technology, Vol. 54, pp. 853--865.
[31]
Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A. 2013. Project management office a knowledge broker in project-based organizations, Int J Proj Manage, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 31--42.
[32]
Koskela J., and Abrahamsson, P. 2004 On-Site Customer in an XP Project: Empirical Results from a Case Study, In Software Process Improvement, Springer Berlin, pp 1--11.
[33]
Park, J. G., and Lee, J. (2014) Knowledge sharing in information systems development projects: Explicating the role of dependence and trust, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 32, pp. 153--165.
[34]
Tversky A, Kahneman D. 1974. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, Vol. 185, p. 1125--1130.
[35]
Zajonc, R. B. 2001. Mere Exposure: A Gateway to the Subliminal. Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 10, No 6.
[36]
Huff, R. A., and Prybutok, V. R. 2008 Information Systems Project Management Decision Making: The Influence of Experience and Risk Propensity. Project Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 34--47.
[37]
Williams, L. and Cockburn, A. 2003 Agile software development: it's about feedback and change. IEEE Computer, Vol. 36, No 6, pp. 39--43.

Cited By

View all
  • (2023)On Adopting Software Analytics for Managerial Decision-Making: A Practitioner’s PerspectiveIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.329482311(73145-73163)Online publication date: 2023
  • (2022)What Leads to a Confirmatory or Disconfirmatory Behavior of Software Testers?IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2020.301989248:4(1351-1368)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2022
  • (2022)Iteration Causes, Impact, and Timing in Software Development Lifecycle: An SLRIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.318270310(65355-65375)Online publication date: 2022
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Decision-making in software project management: a qualitative case study of a private organization

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHASE '16: Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering
    May 2016
    142 pages
    ISBN:9781450341554
    DOI:10.1145/2897586
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 14 May 2016

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. decision-making
    2. grounded theory
    3. software project management

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    ICSE '16
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 47 of 70 submissions, 67%

    Upcoming Conference

    ICSE 2025

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)35
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 13 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2023)On Adopting Software Analytics for Managerial Decision-Making: A Practitioner’s PerspectiveIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.329482311(73145-73163)Online publication date: 2023
    • (2022)What Leads to a Confirmatory or Disconfirmatory Behavior of Software Testers?IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2020.301989248:4(1351-1368)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2022
    • (2022)Iteration Causes, Impact, and Timing in Software Development Lifecycle: An SLRIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.318270310(65355-65375)Online publication date: 2022
    • (2020)Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping StudyIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2018.287775946:12(1318-1339)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
    • (2019)Patterns of identity and interaction in an agile community of practiceProceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1109/CHASE.2019.00025(71-78)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
    • (2019)Decisions and Their Making in OSS Development: An Exploratory Study Using the Hibernate Developer Mailing List2019 26th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC)10.1109/APSEC48747.2019.00051(323-330)Online publication date: Dec-2019
    • (2017)ID3PProceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1109/CHASE.2017.9(49-55)Online publication date: 20-May-2017
    • (2017)Intertemporal choiceProceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1109/CHASE.2017.6(23-29)Online publication date: 20-May-2017

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media