The Influence of Cognitive Biases on Architectural Technical Debt

Borowa, Klara; Zalewski, Andrzej; Kijas, Szymon

doi:10.1109/icsa51549.2021.00019

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Preparing the debiasing workshop. Biases The debiasing workshop was designed to counter three biases that in previous research turned out to be exceptionally influential on architectural decisions [18], [3] and their impact on software engineering overall has already been researched extensively [9] :…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debiasing architectural decision-making: a workshop-based training approach

Borowa¹,

Maria²,

Gabriela³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Cognitive biases distort the process of rational decision-making, including architectural decision-making. So far, no method has been empirically proven to reduce the impact of cognitive biases on architectural decision-making. We conducted an experiment in which 44 master's degree graduate students took part. Divided into 12 teams, they created two designs -before and after a debiasing workshop. We recorded this process and analysed how the participants discussed their decisions. In most cases (10 out of 12 groups), the teams' reasoning improved after the workshop. Thus, we show that debiasing architectural decision-making is an attainable goal and provide a simple debiasing treatment that could easily be used when training software practitioners.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debiasing architectural decision-making: a workshop-based training approach

Borowa¹,

Maria²,

Gabriela³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…This highlights a trade-off between having software produced fast, or having software produced well with expectations of longevity. Technical debt arises from a series of decisions which have been linked to biases such as anchoring, optimism and confirmation bias [13].…”

Section: "For Less Security Critical Software It May Be Justified To ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can you hear the ROAR of software security? How Responsibility, Optimism And Risk shape developers’ security perceptions

Ivory¹,

Sturdee²,

Towse³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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We apply a social and cognitive psychological approach to better understand software developers’ perceptions of secure software development. Drawing upon psychological theories of social identity and cognitive processing, we illustrate how software developers’ self-defined social identities affect their approaches to development. We also point to behaviours that might indicate areas of increased risk of project delays or failure. Professional freelance software developers together with current computer science students addressed considerations of risk and security during development. A thematic analysis extracted three core themes of responsibility, risk, and optimism. We show how language used about responsibility for code security is framed through concepts of diffusion, displacement, and acceptance of responsibility. We also examine the way developers orientate to risk awareness, appetites for risk, and risk mitigation strategies. Examples of unrealistic optimism biases are highlighted and discussed. We discuss our findings in relation to psychological theories of responsibility, decision making and heuristics and biases, alongside prior work within software engineering. We conclude with a discussion of the advantages of using a psychological lens to examine the rationalisations and trade-offs made by developers when working with security in software.

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“…Vogel-Heuser et al advised using guidelines to prevent TD in embedded systems [29]. Borowa et al presented some mechanisms to prevent cognitive biases that may lead to TD incurrence, such as "challenging all decisions", "explicitly gathering information about alternatives", "documenting and passing on knowledge", "explicitly registering all accounts of TD" and "defining and recording who is responsible" [22].…”

Section: Td Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The awareness leads to better communication between developers and IT management, which is a problem often mentioned regarding TD management [3,21,22,15]. For example, in their work about architectural TD (ATD), Verdeccia et al found "difficulties in communicating the presence of ATD to the stakeholders of a software product" [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To step back and think about or discuss different solution options is not common practice. In a paper about cognitive biases and their antecedents, Borowa et al call this phenomenon communicational antecedents, i.e., "constructive criticism and challenging the ideas underlying the decisions of others is not standard " [22]. This may lead to the anchoring bias, i.e., choosing the first available option.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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