Intertemporal Choice: Decision Making and Time in Software Engineering

Abstract

Abstract-When making choices in software projects, engineers and other stakeholders engage in decision making that involves uncertain future outcomes. The concept of 'intertemporal choice' describes choices between outcomes at different times in the future. Short-sighted decisions with far-reaching effects are a long-standing cause of concern in the software profession.Common models to support decisions in software projects use concepts such as expected utility and discount factors to quantify future value and enable trade-off decisions. However, a growing body of behavioral research shows that these normative models do not adequately describe how people actually make choices.Our objective is to understand how developers and stakeholders actually take trade-off decisions during software projects that involve current and future benefits, and to identify the human and cooperative factors that influence them. This requires empirical research on decision making in SE with a focus on trade-offs across time. To support such research, this paper reports on a systematic literature review that aimed to identify whether the intersection of these concepts has been acknowledged and addressed. We discuss the assumptions about decision makers that underpin existing research and analyze how the role of time has been characterized in the study of decision making in SE.Based on this review, the paper begins to develop principles for a descriptive framework to characterize intertemporal choices in empirical and behavioral software engineering research.

Beware the Normative Fallacy

“…Examples of similarly structured questions seem common in SE. A second systematic review about studies of trade-off decisions in SE came to the same conclusion [13]. Again, data collection in empirical studies was predicated on the narrowly framed concepts of rationalistic decision making: factors, weights, ranking, and choice.…”

“…In behavioral SE studies, however, the normative fallacy appears common. Systematic literature reviews in key areas suggest that many studies in SE use prescriptive theories to collect and interpret data about behavior for descriptive and explanatory purposes [13], [14]. In an extensive systematic literature review on Technical Debt decisions, we found that of the few studies that performed descriptive empirical work, all relied exclusively on rationalistic decision making theories [14].…”

Buying time in software development: how estimates become commitments?

“…Additionally, Becker, Walker, and McCord [40] mapped studies about intertemporal choices -a concept of psychology and behavioral economics referring to "decisions involving tradeoffs among costs and benefits occurring in different times" [41] -in software engineering. They found that no empirical work investigated trade-offs in time in depth.…”

Temporal Discounting in Software Engineering: A Replication Study

“…We note that meta-analysis is only possible when there is a substantial amount of existing research on a subject. Temporal discounting in software engineering has not been extensively studied before [24]. Our chosen strategy is therefore to gradually expand the body of knowledge regarding temporal discounting by first replicating the original observational study design.…”

“…How can we reduce excessive discounting in specific areas such as project management or technical debt? Which assumptions of current methods in these areas need to be revisited [24]? How should the findings influence the creation of new methods for use in industry?…”