Group Decision-Making Processes in Industrial Software Evolution

Abstract

Software evolution decision-making is important. Decisions can be made by an individual or a group. Currently it is not known how decision-making is organized in software industry. However, that knowledge is needed to improve the decision-making processes. Therefore, we have studied 29 decision making experts, who were involved in software evolution decision-making. The study was performed with qualitative methods, which enabled the gathering of versatile information concerning the views of the decision-makers. The study revealed group decisions are widely used both in private and public organizations and attitudes towards them are generally positive or neutral. The study provided information about usage of groups in the preparation phase of the decisions and in the actual decision-making phase. In most cases groups were used in the preparation phase. The revealed decision-making process is related to two theoretical process models. The findings help to understand industrial decision-making in this important, but empirically surprisingly scarcely studied area.