KNOWING SOFTWARE ENGINEER’S PERSONALITY

TO IMPROVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Luis G. Martínez, Juan R. Castro, Guillermo Licea, Antonio Rodríguez-Díaz and Carlos F. Alvarez

University of Baja California, Calzada Tecnológico 14418, Tijuana, 22300, Mexico

Keywords: Software Engineering, Decision Making, Roles, Psychometrics.

Abstract: Nowadays organizations work to improve their software development process, with a purpose to reduce

costs, improve quality and increase planning reliability. That is why decision making pertaining to role

assignment in software engineering developing projects is one of the most important factors that affect the

software development process in organizations. We should not only consider individual’s abilities and

capabilities for better team performance but also consider knowing their personality traits to carry out the

most suitable role in an effective working team. Through compilation of studies with RAMSET (Role

Assignment Methodology for Software Engineering Teams) methodology some personalities and typologies

have been identified to perform certain type of roles, thus helping us build a better, cohesive and less

conflictive team. Our methodology based on personality has revealed appropriate and adequate personality

patterns for assignment of best advisable performing roles in software development, according not only to

capabilities of people and role demands but also taking into consideration personality traits, thus showing

that knowing software engineer’s personality can improve software development process.

1 INTRODUCTION

Psychological assessment instruments have been

used for over sixty years and have reached a mature

stage for predicting career selecting and behavior.

Diverse personality tests like Jung, Myers-Briggs,

Keirsey, Big Five, among other projective tests, can

be used to know the sociopsychological

characteristics and personality of individuals besides

abilities for job placement and hiring, especially in

assigning individuals to form a working team

(Leaetta and Frederick, 2000) (Rodriguez, 2004)

(Rothstein and Goffin, 2006).

Effective use of psychometric instruments can

add value to an organization. When used in selection

and structured interview process, they enable

companies to select more accurately those people

who will perform best in a role, although the

instrument does not predict success in a role, it does,

however, identify preferences for that role

(Pittenger, 1993).

Decision making pertaining to role assignment in

software development process is one of the most

important factors an organization has to consider.

Use of effective decision making software for

everyday planning and task management is on the

rise in modern organizations. Web pages and

Decision Groups commonly offer services for

decision making and personnel selection with

diverse methodologies applying psychometrics.

This paper presents a personality trait assessment

derived from implementing different personality

tests, although software engineering attracts people

of all psychological types certain traits are clearly

more represented than others discovering personality

patterns in software engineering developers.

The paper is organized as follows: section 2 is a

brief background of personality types and traits

related with software engineer’s role performance;

section 3 refers to the methodology and personality

tests used in our case studies; section 4 presents data

results of these tests obtaining personality patterns

for software engineering roles, concluding in section

5 with observations obtained from experience.

2 BACKGROUND

Actual studies have been focusing on integration and

building of Software Engineering Teams, addressing

different factors that influence their performance

like team abilities, team administration, efficiency,

development methods (Guinan et al., 1998),

diversity (Smith et al., 2001), size (Biffl and Halling,

Martínez L., Castro J., Licea G., Rodríguez-Díaz A. and Alvarez C..

KNOWING SOFTWARE ENGINEER’S PERSONALITY TO IMPROVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

DOI: 10.5220/0003446300990104

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Software and Database Technologies (ICSOFT-2011), pages 99-104

ISBN: 978-989-8425-77-5

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2003), genre (Teague, 2002), personality (Gorla and

Lam, 2004) and roles (Dubinsky and Hazzan, 2006).

DeMarco and Lister (1999) make many

observations about managing software development

implying that the major problems in development

are not technical but social. Calitz et al. (1997)

outlines some of the increased demands on IT

personnel. He identifies a shift from a traditional IT

environment (programming from specifications,

little end user contact, specified delivery times) to an

environment of growing competition, fast-changing

technologies, and more sophisticated and demanding

end-users. This shift is reflected in the personality

traits of successful IT staff that are investigative,

realistic, enterprising and, more recently, social.

Some of these social skills have been identified by

Goldstein (1988), agreeing with supervisors and

employees in four factors: communication skill, job

attitude, business knowledge, and technical skill.

Five broad domains or dimensions of personality

have been scientifically discovered to define human

personality, in contemporary psychology they have

been called the "Big Five" factors of personality.

The initial model was reported by Tupes and Cristal

(1992), later Goldberg (1993) extended it to the

highest level of organization, and it is known as the

“Five Factor Model” or FFM (Costa and McRae,

1992), is a purely descriptive model of personality.

Traits Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,

Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN), are

positively related to teamwork and must be

considered to improve team’s performance.

Bernstein et al. (2008) used the Big Five personality

framework to predict the relationship between team

member personality and team effectiveness in

teamwork and decision making areas.

Neuroticism trait is sometimes referred as

Emotional Stability and Openness as Intellect.

Openness (O) is a disposition to be imaginative,

inventive, curious, unconventional and autonomous;

it has an appreciation for art, emotion, adventure and

a variety of experience. Conscientiousness (C)

comprises of two related facets achievement and

dependability, it has a tendency to show self-

discipline, to be efficient, organized and aim for

achievement, plans rather than behave

spontaneously. Extraversion (E) represents a

tendency to be sociable, outgoing and assertive, with

energy, passion and excitement. Agreeableness (A)

is a tendency to be trusting, friendly, compassionate,

cooperative, compliant, caring and gentle.

Neuroticism (N) represents a tendency to exhibit

poor emotional adjustment and experience negative

or unpleasant emotions easily, such as anxiety,

insecurity, depression and hostility.

Also Jung’s different personality dimensions are

associated to different career and jobs corresponding

to the individual personality type (United States

Department of the Interior). Jobs associated with

engineering and software are: ISTJ type is related

with engineer, programmer and chief information

officer; INTJ type includes programmer and

informational graphics; INTP type relates with

software designer, system analyst, computer

programmer, data base manager; ISTP type includes

computer repair person, programmer, software

developer; ESTP takes in entrepreneur, technical

trainer, analyst; ENTJ an administrator and program

designer.

Gorla and Lam (2004) made a personality type

analysis to describe the most effective personality

attributes for software development team roles; she

found that a team leader with (I) Intuitive

characteristics outperformed a (S) Sensing leader as

intuitive persons are picture oriented and have an

innovative ability to assess alternate solutions. Also

a (F) Feeling team leader outperformed a (T)

Thinking leader, because a feeling person is people

oriented and makes decisions based on how they

affect individuals, making him more effective.

Capretz (2003) implies that software engineers and

psychological types are clearly related, as suggested

by this study. More specifically their work suggests

that software engineers are most likely to be STs,

TJs or NTs.

Furthermore projective tests have also been used

in management (Soley and Smith, 2008) to assess

achievement motivation and other drives, in

sociology to assess the adoption of innovations, and

in anthropology to study cultural meaning. The

application of responses is different in these

disciplines than in psychology, because the

responses of multiple respondents are grouped

together for analysis by the organization’s research

commission, rather than interpreting response

meanings given by a single subject.

A projective test is a personality test designed to

let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli,

presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal

conflicts. Because the stimulus is ambiguous, the

patient must impose his or her own structure. In

doing so, thoughts, feelings, and themes, some of

which are unconscious, are projected into the

material. Projective tests can provide an interesting

source of information regarding the person’s unique

view of the world, and they can be a useful

supplement to information obtained with other

assessment tools.

The Tree Test is a projective test initiated by

Emil Jucker and Koch (1986) contributes with

formulations and interpretations related in

ICSOFT 2011 - 6th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies

100

graphology as quality strokes, zone and sheet

placement. Every graphical product instates the

psychic life of an individual; trees are symbolically

associated with man’s inner person and can describe

their growth and emotional stability. The tree’s

crown represents the subject’s fantasies, mental

activities, his thoughts, spirituality and reality

conception, includes foliage and branches. The trunk

is related with affections and relationships. The

unconscious world or instincts are symbolized in the

root as it relates the material, physical, earthly life,

sexuality, and reality criteria (Griffiths 1988).

Psychodiagnostics analyzes specific characteristics

from the drawing; in Root we can select sketching

type and size as it represents the past and reflects a

person’s dependency. For Trunk we can select form,

area, height, sketch intensity and curvature, the trunk

depicts the present and reflects person’s affectivity.

For Foliage we can select form, size and extra

features, it symbolizes achievements or goals

reached.

A personality Tree Test does not define us a total

projection or whole image of the personality, but

sheds valuable information of the sketcher.

Relevance and merit of applying this test in

combination with other objective tests, like Jung’s

and Big Five can reveal appropriate and adequate

personality patterns for assignment of best advisable

performing roles to members of working teams in

software engineering development, according not

only to capabilities of the people and demands of the

role but also taking into consideration personality

traits.

3 METHODOLOGY

Teaching of Software Engineering in the Computer

Engineering Program at the University of Baja

California, Tijuana Mexico is being conducted with

development of real software projects applying

RAMSET: a Role Assignment Methodology for

Software Engineering Teams based on personality;

what is unique about this methodology is a

combination of Sociometric techniques,

Psychometrics and Role Theory consisting of the

next steps:

a) Survey for abilities and skills.

b) Implementation of Personality Tests.

c) Carrying out Personal Interviews.

d) Implementation of Sociometric Technique.

e) Assignment of Team Roles.

f) Follow up of Team Role fulfilment.

RAMSET methodology begins with a student’s

survey enumerating related courses of software

engineering he has taken, to know which

programming languages and data base managers he

is expert in. The next step is a series of personality

tests; they could be Jung, MBTI, Big Five, Keirsey

and other projective tests.

Subsequently we make an informal interview to

know different aspects of his personality, what he

likes to do, how he perceives himself after college,

how he develops individually in the real world and

with others. After that a sociogram technique is

applied to identify affinity for integration of teams.

Based on test results and interview information a

role is recommended to the instructor so individual

members of each team develop a specific team role

with all its functions.

Adopted team roles were selected from roles

defined by Tomayko (1996): architect, responsible

for construction, coordination and supervision of the

project; analyst, responsible for finding and

following up on resources, requirement analysis and

specifications; developer, responsible for

implementation and design; and programmers,

technical specialist in charge of building code. In

addition we considered a document specialist in

charge of joining documents and skilled in writing,

and a presenter and image specialist responsible for

sales, distribution and image design.

Our case study has taken into account Jung and

Big Five objective tests, where individuals require

selecting options from multiple choice

questionnaires equating personality to collective

degrees of behaviour into Jung Types or Five Factor

types. Also a projective test is used where the test

taker is asked to draw a Tree, these drawings

provide a measure of self-perceptions and attitudes

obtaining information concerning an individual’s

sensitivity, maturity, flexibility, efficiency, degree of

integration and interaction with the environment.

Although this test throws subjective information

based on the point of view and perception of the

evaluator.

4 RESULTS

In a period of three years from 2007 through 2009,

work of our case studies consisted of implementing

RAMSET methodology to obtain personality

patterns related with software engineering roles

performed in team projects. Data accumulated

during this period was 88 Jung test results, 80 Big

Five test results, 74 drawing trees. With a weighted

mean method applied on frequencies of Jung and

KNOWING SOFTWARE ENGINEER'S PERSONALITY TO IMPROVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

101

Tree data tests, tables 1 and 2 were obtained.

Weighted mean is the number obtained by adding

the product of α

times the ith number in a set of N

numbers for i = 1,2,…,N, where α

are numbers

(weights) such that α

+ α

+ … + α

= 1.

Table 1: Jung Type Software Engineering Role Weights.

ANA ARC DEV DOC TST PRS

J1* .513 .524 .113 .47 .385 .233

J2 .12 .272 .101 .171 .189 .384

J3 .267 0 .031 .077 .28 .209

J4 .053 .061 .346 .068 0 0

J5 0 0 .189 .051 .056 .093

J6 .047 .054 .025 .06 .049 0

J7 0 .048 0 .043 .042 .081

J8 0 .041 .019 .034 0 0

J9 0 0 .088 .026 0 0

J10 0 0 .075 0 0 0

J11 0 0 .013 0 0 0

*J1=ESTJ, J2=ENTJ, J3=ESFJ, J4=ISTP, J5=INTJ,

J6=ISTJ, J7=ISFJ, J8=ESFP, J9=ISFP, J10=ESTP,

J11=ENTP

Table 2: Tree Test Software Engineering Role Weights.

ROOT’S WEIGHTS

ANA* ARC DEV DOC TST PRS

R1 0.103 0.182 0.441 0.030 0.067 0.050

R2 0.276 0.636 0.441 0.727 0.333 0.200

R3 0.621 0.182 0.118 0.242 0.600 0.750

TRUNK’S WEIGHTS

ANA ARC DEV DOC TST PRS

T1 0.174 0.174 0.25 0.091 0.097 0.316

T2 0.652 0.174 0.656 0.455 0.452 0.632

T3 0.174 0.652 0.094 0.455 0.452 0.053

FOLIAGE’S WEIGHTS

ANA ARC DEV DOC TST PRS

F1 0.225 0.153 0.340 0.243 0.243 0.130

F2 0.6 0.307 0.545 0.540 0.162 0.695

F3 0.15 0.512 0.090 0.162 0.540 0.087

F4 0.025 0.025 0.022 0.054 0.054 0.087

*ANA=Analyst, ARC=Architect, DEV=Developer-

programmer, DOC=Documenter, TST=Tester, PRS=Image

and Presenter

R1=null, R2=none, R3=with, T1= straight, T2=wave,

T3=trapeze, F1=circular, F2=cloud, F3=fruit, F4=null

If we only consider Jung’s Test we observe that

ESTJ type is a highly qualified individual to perform

different roles, data suggests Analyst or Architect as

best roles; they are highly (E) extroverted and have

good (J) judgment, qualities favourable to relate

with other people and take important decisions. An

ISTP type is a Developer or Programmer, commonly

(I) introverted and (T) thoughtful to his work with

high logic for problem solving. An ESTJ is a Tester

although others can perform this role and for

Presenter we recommend an ENTJ, ESTJ or ESFJ.

Data also indicates that types ESFP, ISFP, ESTP or

ENTP should not be assigned as analysts, architects

or testers, as they lack traits to better perform these

roles.

From Table 2 we can analyze each attribute with

its highest value, for example, when Root (R) is null

(R1) the most probable role is Developer-

Programmer (Q3). Without visible root (R2) we can

assign Architect (Q2) or Documenter (Q4). Any

sketch of root (R3) we are talking about an Analyst

(Q1), Tester (Q5) or Presenter (Q6). Individuals

performing this later role have been related with

their own personal image, and a high percentage

draw roots (R3) even highlighting thick roots,

meaning that this individual likes to draw attention

to him; he wants to be notice and depends of what

other people say.

There are fewer differences on the Trunk (T), but

we can distinguish an Architect (Q2) from others

because he draws the trunk in a trapeze shape (T3).

The Foliage (F) distinguishes an Architect (Q2) and

a Tester (Q5) from other roles as they draw trees

with Fruits (F3), others draw cloudy (F2) type most

of the times. We can clearly distinguish two roles

from others, they are Architect (Q2) as he has the

only combination of without root (R2), trapeze (T3)

and fruits (F3); and the Tester (Q5) is the only one

with root (R3), trapeze or wavy (T3 or T2) and fruits

(F3). Drawing fruits means he has a clear view of

what he wants to do, he has achieved personal goals

in life, giving him the serenity to take charge of any

project obtaining the final product, qualities of a

leader and an architect.

Table 3: Big Five Software Engineering Role Means.

O C E A N

ANA

50.61 63.14 51.57 45.84 64.28

ARC

54.15 67.23 57.30 52.15 64.15

DEV

51.66 52.77 44.11 54.47 59.22

DOC

55.00 61.28 51.92 52.00 58.85

TST

51.71 66.13 56.00 47.85 63.33

PRS

52.22 60.88 46.88 55.77 65.77

Big Five personality test results are presented in

Table 3 showing means of each trait for every role.

Each row is a personality vector unique for every

Role, no two rows have exactly the same values for

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every one of their attributes, and this gives us a

significant difference between each Role to

recommend based on the Big Five Personality Test.

Figure 1: Big Five Personality Patterns (B5P).

We displayed them with a radar chart type in

figure 1, obtaining unique Big Five Patterns (B5P)

for Software Engineering Roles, showing significant

differences between each role. Trait (E) is high for

architect and tester, low for a developer. Trait (C) is

high for most roles except for developer. Trait (A) is

high for a presenter and developer, but low for an

analyst. This can give us a glimpse of specific traits

for a particular role. Thus one trait does not define

the personality of a role, but a personality vector

with all traits involved can give us differences

between each role.

Assessment of these results has ascertain that a

low degree of (E) is definitively recomended to

place this person as a Developer-Programmer, this

indicates a person highly Introverted, for him is

difficult to relate with others, although his high

degree in trait (A) is an asset as he is very

cooperative, trusting and compliant, attributes for a

good programmer, also the B5P figure of developer

has a high degree of (O) indicating to be imaginative

and creative, qualities for code design. Trait (N) is a

most significative trait as envelopes a wide range of

roles, those with low degree of (N) or better said

with a high degree of (ES) Emotional Stability is a

quality of a leader presenting security, reassurance

and selfconfidence. For a high degree of (E) as noted

in B5P figures, an architect, analyst and tester

present this quality, indicating that these roles are

best suited for outgoing people, they can relate

easily with others, with passion and excitement

reaching goals and objectives.

Qualitative data shows that teams have been

fulfilling their expectations and fulfilling their roles.

The majority of opinions on integrating a work team

for a software development project have been

positive. The teams formed have been successful

and cooperative; have finished their jobs with great

accomplishment. Particular opinions acknowledge

that working as a team the job gets done better.

Knowing their strengths and weaknesses gave

them more confidence and a better attitude to

approach assigned role responsibilities.

Understanding their role and knowing what qualities

they can contribute, gives them a sense of belonging

and a feeling of contribution to the team, a place and

a reason for that role in team performance dynamics.

Quantitatively we can make reference to project

time delivery, before implementing RAMSET

methodology we worked with 10 teams, where 8 of

them were late on delivery, with RAMSET we

worked with 18 teams where 5 of them were late on

delivery, a great improvement after organizing and

integrating teams based on personality as shown in

figure 2.

Figure 2: On time delivery percentage.

5 CONCLUSIONS

We know that personality is an important factor for

team performance, thus is latent the difficulty to

assign adequate roles to each member for success in

team performance. Some personalities and

typologies have been identified to perform certain

type of roles, concluding that knowing software

engineer’s personality can help us build a better,

more cohesive and less conflictive team.

Combination of personality tests gives more

valuable information for decision making as they

can help predict situations inside the working team.

If we know our software engineer’s personality,

we can assign a secure and self confident individual

KNOWING SOFTWARE ENGINEER'S PERSONALITY TO IMPROVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

103

leadership of the team as an architect, if he is

cooperative, trusting and compliant he can very

much perform as a developer-programmer, if he is

self-disciplined, efficient, organized, but insecured

he will be most adequate as a tester, if he is

imaginative, inventive, curious, outgoing and

autonomous role analyst is the perfect choice.

Future work consists on creating a software

supporting tool developed under a fuzzy approach,

integrating each personality test to build a decision

making model support tool. This software will

facilitate process of role assignment, which results in

a choice of role selection for individuals in working

team projects. Building a decision making model as

future work will facilitate role assignment process

for human resource personnel at selecting candidates

for software engineering jobs.

Our methodology based on personality has

revealed appropriate and adequate personality

patterns for assignment of best advisable performing

roles to members of working teams in software

engineering development, according not only to

capabilities of the people and demands of the role

but also taking into consideration personality traits,

thus showing that knowing software engineer’s

personality can improve software development

process.

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