Authors:
Christoph Matthies
and
Guenter Hesse
Affiliation:
Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam and Germany
Keyword(s):
Software Engineering, Agile Software Development, Data-driven Decision Making, Decision Support Systems.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Artificial Intelligence
;
Business Analytics
;
Cardiovascular Technologies
;
Computing and Telecommunications in Cardiology
;
Data Engineering
;
Decision Support Systems
;
Decision Support Systems, Remote Data Analysis
;
Health Engineering and Technology Applications
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Symbolic Systems
Abstract:
Software development comprises complex tasks which are performed by humans. It involves problem solving, domain understanding and communication skills as well as knowledge of a broad variety of technologies, architectures, and solution approaches. As such, software development projects include many situations where crucial decisions must be made. Making the appropriate organizational or technical choices for a given software team building a product can make the difference between project success or failure. Software development methods have introduced frameworks and sets of best practices for certain contexts, providing practitioners with established guidelines for these important choices. Current Agile methods employed in modern software development have highlighted the importance of the human factors in software development. These methods rely on short feedback loops and the self-organization of teams to enable collaborative decision making. While Agile methods stress the importanc
e of empirical process control, i.e. relying on data to make decisions, they do not prescribe in detail how this goal should be achieved. In this paper, we describe the types and abstraction levels of data and decisions within modern software development teams and identify the benefits that usage of this data enables. We argue that the principles of data-driven decision making are highly applicable, yet underused, in modern Agile software development.
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