On cognitive biases in architecture decision making

Abstract

The research carried out to date shows that architectural decision-making is far from being a rational process. Architects tend to adopt a satisfying approach, rather than looking for the optimal architecture, which is a result of many human and social factors. The results of a workshop, carried out with 14 software engineering practitioners show that cognitive biases are commonly present in architecture decision-making. A systematic approach to analysing the influence of biases on decision making has been introduced. Twelve cognitive biases identified during the workshop were analysed with regard to the elements of the decision-making context that affected the aspects of architectural decision making. Finally, we analyse the interactions between cognitive biases and the conditions of real-world software development.