The relationship between personality and value-based decision-making

Abstract

Within the context of software engineering, many decisions take place and such decisions should employ value propositions that focus on short as well as long-term goals. In 2003, Boehm coined the term Value-Based Software Engineering (VBSE), which entails the change from a value-neutral to a value-based approach. VBSE argues that decisions should be based on all key stakeholders' value propositions, and to balance both reach the short as well as long-term goal(s) the ones. This paper details a PhD research plan that aims to study the relationship between personality and decision-making within the context of VBSE. The research focuses on group decision-making, considering three aspects: the interaction among decision-makers, their perception of the decision value and their personality traits. The research methodology will be experiment which will revolve around a hypothetical software development project and some decisions that need to be made, for example, the features to be included and the priority of each one. The contribution from a theoretical perspective is to understand the relationship among three main aspects: personality traits, decision-making process, and decision value. From practitioners' perspective, the contribution is to provide help on improving software project decision-making.