2016 9th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering
Decision-Making in Software Project Management: A
Qualitative Case Study of a Private Organization
José Adson O. G. da Cunha Fabio Q. B. da Silva
Center for Informatics, UFPE Hermano P. de Moura
Av. Jornalista Anibal Fernandes, s/n, Center for Informatics, UFPE
Cid. Univ., 50740-560, Recife, Brazil Av. Jornalista Anibal Fernandes, s/n,
+55 81 21268430 Cid. Univ., 50740-560, Recife, Brazil
jaogc@cin.ufpe.br +55 81 21268430
fabio@cin.ufpe.br
hermano@cin.ufpe.br
ABSTRACT
Context: In software project management, the decision-making
process is a complex set of tasks largely based on specific
knowledge and individual cultural background, as well as human
relations. The factors that affect the decisions of the software
project managers (SPMs) and their potential consequences require
attention because project delays and failures are usually related to
a series of poor decisions. Objective: To understand how SPMs
make decisions based on how they interpret their experiences in
the workplace, and also to identify antecedents and consequences
of those decisions in order to increase the effectiveness of project
management. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried
out with SPMs within a Brazilian large private organization. The
data was analyzed using techniques from grounded theory
approach. Results: We found that decision-making in software
project management is based on knowledge sharing in which the
SPM acts as a facilitator before making decisions. This
phenomenon is influenced by individual factors, such as
experience, communication, negotiation, self-control and systemic
view of the project and by contextual factors such as the
autonomy of the SPM and team members' technical competence.
Also, these factors are mediated by cognitive biases. Conclusions:
Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent in software
projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting
decisions in an argument-driven way.
CCS Concepts
• Software and its engineering ➝ Software creation and
management ➝ Software development process management.
Keywords
Software Project Management, Decision-Making, Grounded
Theory.
1. INTRODUCTION
The activities conducted in all hierarchy levels of an organization
are essentially related to problem solving and decision making [1].
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CHASE'16, May 16 2016, Austin, TX, USA
© 2016 ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-4155-4/16/05$15.00
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2897586.2897598
26
Francisco J. S. Vasconcellos
College of Computing, UFMS
Cid. Univ., 79070-900, Campo
Grande, Brazil
+55 67 33457910
francisco.vasconcellos@ufms.br
Making complex decisions is one of the most difficult tasks faced
individually or by groups of individuals, since such decisions
often must meet multiple objectives, and often their impact may
not be correctly identified.
As with all important business decisions, project outcomes can be
traced to decisions that were made at an earlier point in time.
According to the Project Management Institute [2], 47% of
unsuccessful projects are impacted by poor decision-making.
Numerous publications discuss decision-making in several areas
of project management, such as decision-making as an integral
part of project management [3], the relationship between decision-
making and risk [4], product development decisions [5], and
decision-making in the global development context [6]. These
approaches are useful for project managers, but they adopt clear-
cut simplifications of the phenomenon, ignoring relevant
contextual elements and their relationship.
According to Cicmil et al. [7], there is a need to move from
practitioners who follow detailed procedures to reflective
practitioners who can learn, operate and adapt effectively in
complex project environments. Furthermore, Lenberga et al. [8]
indicated that the behavioral software engineering research area is
growing and incorporating an increasing number of concepts from
psychology and social science, but the results also show that
several concepts have not yet been studied or at least have few
studies in SE, including decision-making.
This article presents the results of research conducted in a
Brazilian large private organization focused on understanding
how software project managers make decisions based on how they
interpret their experiences in the workplace, and what are the
antecedents and consequences of their decisions in order to
identify the individual and external factors that lead to more or
less successful project decisions.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section II
presents a theoretical background of decision-making; Section III
details the research method; Section IV presents the results of the
case study; and, finally, Section V presents our conclusions.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Researchers in economics, psychology, health and many other
fields are producing a growing field of research into decision-
making by proposing theories in a number of frameworks,
structures, and processes [9]. These decision theories can be
classified into normative, focused on how decisions should be
made in order to be rational, and including the classical decision-
making models; and descriptive, focused on how decisions are
actually made and including the naturalistic decision-making
(NDM) models.
The classical decision-making models are based on the axioms of
rationality that assume that the decision maker is a rational,
economic man who seeks to optimize the outcome of choice and
that the options, criteria and values are known (e.g. expected
utility [10]). The naturalistic decision-making framework,
however, emerged as a means of studying how people make
decisions and perform cognitively complex functions in
demanding, real-world situations marked by limited time,
uncertainty, high stakes, team and organizational constraints,
unstable conditions, and varying amounts of experience [11].
The models of decision-making in the naturalistic decision
approach (e.g. recognition-primed decisions [12] and the model of
cognitive control [13]) consider that people use prior experience
to rapidly categorize situations. From this perspective, making a
decision means committing oneself to a course of action where
plausible alternatives exist, even if the person does not identify or
compare these alternatives. During this process, people rely on
heuristics, or general rules of thumb, and, in the hasty search for
solutions, they are susceptible to cognitive biases, or distortions in
the way we perceive reality [14].
In the software context, the reference models and international
standards, such as CMMI [15], require formal processes of
decision-making in order to achieve certain levels of maturity in
software processes. Also, tools and techniques to assist decision-
making in software projects were proposed such as: indicators
[16], software project control centers [17], system dynamics [18],
checklists [19], decision models [20] and multi-criteria decision
analysis [21]. Although these theories, models and techniques
provided important insights into managerial decision-making, no
one can explain how people make decisions in specific contexts
[22]. Therefore, considering the particularities of the software
development context, there is a lack of further explanation for
how SPMs make decisions from their own perspective
considering the factors that influence effective and ineffective
decisions leading to successful or unsuccessful projects.
3. METHOD
This research aims to develop insights from the deeper
understanding of how individual SPMs interpret their experiences
when making decisions and why certain combinations of
contextual and individual factors lead to effective or ineffective
decisions. The main question of this research is:
How do software project managers make decisions?
Empirical software engineering research requires a number of
decisions points to be addressed [23]. Figure 1 shows the
decision-making structure used to answer each aspect of the
research design grouped by three phases: strategic, tactical and
operational.
Figure 1. Research design.
This case study was conducted in a Brazilian private large project-
based organization with SPMs who were actively managing a
27
project. Our fertile sample had a good coverage of age,
background, education, years of employment in the organization,
and management of different types of projects [24].
Semi-structured interviews were carried out with six SPMs at the
organizations’ own facilities, during October 2015. The interview
guide was composed of open-ended questions, and included
different types of questions aimed at exploring experience and
behavior, opinion and values, feelings, knowledge and the
background of the participants (Table 1).
The questions were presented in a funnel format, beginning with
general questions and moving towards more specific ones [25].
The general questions encouraged important reflections bringing
more details when answering the specific questions, thus making
possible to understand how past experiences can influence
preferences, feelings and behavior. Four questions were included
in the interview guide to identify adjective sets used to describe an
efficient and inefficient SPM as well as the characteristics related
to their decision-making competence (see Q34, Q35, Q37, Q38).
In order to meet the ethical requirements of this type of research,
each participant was given an explanation about the research and
their rights, in order to guarantee confidentiality of the data
provided, and the anonymity of the participant [24]. All the audio
of the interview sessions was recorded with the consent of the
participants and was transcribed verbatim. The data analysis and
synthesis were supported by ATLAS.ti1. All the interviews
combined totaled 5 hours and 59 minutes of audio time.
Table 1. Interview guide extract (translated to English)
Q1. Tell me a little about yourself: your background, age, and
professional career.
…
Q7. What does your organization offer or do to stimulate the project
management?
Q8. What is the relationship of these actions in order to improve the
decisions made by the software project managers?
Q9. What does your organization do that makes project management
difficult?
Q10. How do these actions make the decision-making by software
project managers difficult?
…
Q16: How would you define a complex decision?
Q18: How would you define a simple decision?
Q22: What is your influence on the decisions made by the project team
members?
Q23: What is the influence of the project team members on project
decisions?
…
Q34: How would you describe a project manager colleague who has a
good performance record?
Q35: Among the characteristics mentioned, which ones are essential for
an efficient decision maker?
Q37: How would you describe a project manager colleague who has a
bad performance record?
Q38: Among the characteristics mentioned, which ones influence an
inefficient decision maker?
Q40: What is the influence of your experience performing other roles
when making decisions as a software project manager?
1
www. Atlasti.com
The guidelines provided by Strauss and Corbin [26] were
followed in order to categorize and synthesize data, labeling
portions of text using post-formed codes and, as the concepts
became clearer, the categories were named following a constant
comparison method, as exemplified in Figure 2. Then,
relationships among categories were mapped, leading to
explanatory propositions that underpin the central story.
Figure 2. Open coding category building.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Context Description
The interviews were carried out in a private and not-profit
software development organization, established in 1994, which
has units in three states of Brazil. It operates in many different
areas, such as: information technology, telecommunications,
industrial automation, solutions for the public sector, and by
providing support services, workforce supply for third-parties,
development of software and hardware products, software
factories, product certification tests, and research and
development of technological innovative products. The project-
based organization was assessed as SW-CMMI level 3. The
management processes broadly followed the PMBOK guide and
SCRUM agile management practices. At the time that this
research was carried out, the organization had about 500
professionals, 85% were part of the technical workforce, and 15%
allocated in administrative tasks.
4.2 How SPMs understand decision-making?
Initially we aimed to understand how the SPMs interpret the
phenomenon by eliciting the characteristics of the decisions that
make them simple or complex. Excerpts from the interviews were
used as evidence. From the SPM's perspective, simple decision
involves the absence of uncertainty caused by the knowledge
gained on the domain of the decision, as exemplified below:
- “It is a decision where you know exactly what to do and
how to do it. It does not impact on any external
stakeholder nor violate any agreement.” (SPM2)
On the other hand, the complexity of a decision is related to its
impact on the project and on the organization itself. It is related to
the involvement of various stakeholders to reach a consensus, to a
high level of uncertainty and also to its impact on people, as
exemplified in the following excerpts:
- "Basically a complex decision involves multiple
variables that need to be reconciled in a non-trivial way
with a high level of uncertainty." (SPM2)
- "The more the decision involves other parties (...) the
less comfortable I feel." (SPM1)
- “I think the most difficult decisions are those involving
people.” (SPM4)
28
Being simple or complex, the decisions made by the SPMs were
based on their tacit knowledge, rather than analytical models of
decision-making, which confirms the naturalistic decision-making
models described in Section 2:
- “Our CMMI level 3 processes include one specifically
for decision-making (...) I did not use it intensely, I think
I used it once or twice and it fell in disuse (...) so I think
that tacit knowledge is more relevant and pertinent in
our day-to-day.” (SPM4)
- “We have a structured decision-making process, but I
think the decisions are made by using the feeling and
experience.” (SPM6)
Influenced by the level of uncertainty inherent to the software
development context [27], the SPMs did not seek for optimal
solutions, but the first workable option. This is aligned with the
satisficing model proposed by Simon [28], which defines that
satisfactory alternatives which exceed some minimally acceptable
criteria are selected. While maximizing compares the positions of
alternatives relative to each other, satisficing evaluates the
positions of alternatives relative to a baseline or target. The
excerpts below illustrate this scenario:
- “Looking at a problem and solving it, not optimally, but
effectively.” (SPM2)
- “We need to make things happen, even if it is not the
best decision (...) and later you will have the
opportunity to correct it or change the course of
action.” (SPM5)
When there is not a deadline or no enough information to make a
decision, the SPMs mentioned the deferring commitment as a
good practice. It is used by agile teams that comes from Lean [29]
and means waiting until the last acceptable moment to make a
decision, as illustrated below:
- “I prefer to avoid or postpone making a decision when
we do not need that decision immediately. If it is
possible I will wait to make a decision based on more
facts.” (SPM2)
Participants also emphasized that effective knowledge sharing
[30] and integration within and between projects was important to
avoid the risk of repeating the same mistakes.
- “We have moments that favor the exchange of
experience and knowledge which are extremely
important because we learn from the experience of
others.” (SPM5)
The results are also aligned with Pemsel and Wiewiora [31]
whose research indicated that lessons learned databases contained
large amounts of information that was not systematically
organized and, as a consequence, they were underutilized and
most project managers did not make use of them as a source of
knowledge in future projects. The SPMs mentioned that it was
more important to share knowledge than access stored documents:
- “By the time you need to collect [information in the
lessons learned document], it was useless because it
lacked important details about the context and without
context you could not extract [information to make a
decision].” (SPM5)
Therefore, considering the context in which this research was
conducted, decision-making in software project management is
the capacity to make decisions through knowledge sharing, and by
looking for the first workable option, based on an argument-
driven way, rather than trying to find the best possible option.
4.3 What factors affect software project
managers' decision-making?
After defining decision-making from the point of view of the
SPMs, the next step was to identify the antecedents of successful
and unsuccessful decisions. The following sections presents the
grounded factors positioned according to their hypothetic effect
on decision-making, showing only the factors grounded in our
data.
4.3.1 Contextual factors
The factors related to the context are illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Contextual factors.
In the project-based organization, as the workforce is concentrated
in projects, having only a few support departments, the SPMs had
autonomy to make decisions. However, for some decisions with a
high degree of subjectivity, mainly involving people, there was a
need for a close supervision by the higher management.
- “The way we're structured promotes openness, freedom,
and the possibility to build new things and propose
changes. (...) However, I think we should have a little
less decision-making power by having one person
looking at it all for decisions that are subjective in order
to be more uniform across the projects.” (SPM4)
One of the main characteristics of agile software development is
the active and continuous participation and involvement of the
clients throughout the project, which leads to building the right
product and to satisfied clients [32]. It was mentioned as
impacting on project decisions, as follows:
- “[In order to make effective decisions] it is important
that the clients get involved and believe in us, and be
transparent, because the success of the project depends
on them too.” (SPM4)
Also, the team members’ technical competence was mentioned as
an important factor because the SPMs are not focused in
operational tasks, thus delegating some decisions.
- “The lower the seniority of the team, the greater is my
influence on decisions. Day-by-day I realize that when
we have a more mature team we share more decisions
instead of influence the team.” (SPM5)
4.3.2 Individual factors
The factors related to the individuals are illustrated in Figure 4.
As stated by the SPMs, shared responsibility in order to make
participatory decision-making is important to obtain the team
members commitment to the project as well as to establish an
atmosphere of trust [33].
- “Trust in people is something very good. Even if I make
a wrong decision, if it was made with them, they will
support me to adjust it.” (SPM1)
In order to gather better information and promote mutual
understanding, the SPMs emphasized the need to ask good
questions that lead to robust debate, as exemplified below:
29
- “My function is asking questions in order to ensure that
people make the right technical decisions by using my
experience to cover a few points that they may have not
thought of, rather than I effectively make the decision.”
(SPM3)
Figure 4. Individual factors.
Some SPMs have a characteristic of being dictatorial and
centralizing the decision-making. This was pointed out as a
negative aspect of the SPMs, impacting on their systemic view of
the project and on the team members’ commitment, as follows:
- “Centralizing [the decisions] on them affects their
ability to see problems in a more holistic way.” (SPM3)
The experience was pointed out as an impacting factor in
decision-making, being composed of: employment time in the
organization, experience of managing projects, and experience
performing other project roles. The first two were mentioned by
SPMs as directly influencing in decision-making:
- “[When I have to make a decision that involves other
departments] I already know who to talk to, and how to
deal with them. We know that everyone is different, so
you have to know the way to talk to each one.” (SPM6)
- "What makes the difference in my life is having
experience, by making mistakes and learning by them."
(SPM2)
The influence of working time performing other project roles in
decision-making was not consensual. Some SPMs argued that it
only offered a perception about the activities in order to enhance
their ability to ask the right questions. Others, however,
considered it a direct influence in decision-making. This scenario
can be explained by the individual background of each SPM,
where some have a strong technical skill, while others do not
have.
- “Maybe the experience [performing other project roles]
helped me have more empathy. Understanding what a
coding day is perhaps make me more flexible to
understand a certain scenario, but it does not influence
in decision-making.” (SPM1)
- “Everything we experienced generates a base of
knowledge, so there is no doubt they will make a
difference when you will make a decision.” (SPM5)
The systemic view of the project enables the understanding the
entire project from a comprehensive analysis of the parties and the
interaction between them. Whereas there is a team involvement in
decisions, especially in the technical ones, the SPM should look
increasingly to the whole to include factors that the team members
did not perceived, as exemplified in the following excerpts:
- “A good project manager needs to have a holistic vision
that transcends the context of the project.” (SPM5)
Otherwise, micromanagement is a management style whereby a
manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or
employees. Often, this excessive obsession with the details causes
a direct management failure in the ability to focus on the major
details.
- “One who is only looking for the operational details
does not see the whole project, so they make decisions
at that level and cannot see what is happening at the
others levels.” (SPM6)
Communication is one key element which has to be applied
effectively throughout a project’s life cycle, from the beginning
till the end, and was mentioned by the SPMs as important in
decision-making, as follows:
- “Since I make decisions together with my team, I have
to align the expectations, so everything has to be clear
to everyone. It is influenced by good communication.”
(SPM2)
Also, the project manager should try to establish and maintain
good relations between all parties and maintain this throughout
the negotiation process.
- “A decision maker has to know how to negotiate.”
(SPM2)
Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent in software
projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting
decisions in a continuous feedback cycle, as described in short in
these excerpts:
- “I try to create an environment where it is okay to make
mistakes. If every time your team gives you bad news,
you criticize them, they will not give you the real status
of the activities until they are out of control. (...) Also,
We work with sprints, fixed iterations, in order to
increase the predictability of the things apparently not
predictable” (SPM1)
The project manager is responsible for keeping himself and all the
project team members working proactively and alert to risks and
opportunities. By exercising proper risk management, the SPMs
can achieve a comfort level within the unknowns that exist in
projects and by coming up with alternative risk management
strategies, they are more likely to circumvent obstacles and make
effective decisions.
- “I try to look for signs of risks to create more proactive
management.” (SPM2)
Being organized was mentioned as an important factor to
successful decisions since managing and keeping track of
projects, tasks, and people are essential to succeeding and making
effective decisions.
- “From the moment that you are organized, you usually
have the information to be able to make a decision.”
(SPM3)
Also, the self-control ability in order to control the SPM's
emotions, behavior, and desires in the face of external demands
was considered important as follows:
- “Emotional balance influences decision-making,
especially in stressful and more difficult moments, in
order to reflect and take a position in the sequence.”
(SPM4)
Some practices and attitudes were related to the susceptibility to
cognitive biases whose negative effects to the SPMs were aimed
30
to be minimized by specific practices. When making decisions,
people may rely on the frequency of an event based on how many
similar instances are brought to mind [34]. The availability
heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled,
it must be important, or at least more important than alternative
solutions which are not as readily recalled, thus making new
opinions biased toward that last memory. Based on some excerpts,
such the following one, the participatory decision-making aims to
uncover new situations that where not thought of by the SPM,
thus minimizing the negative impact of such bias.
- “[When questioned by a stakeholder] I ask to be given
time to internally analyze with my time. This always
causes good results, good surprises, often because the
team brings something in a perspective I had not
analyzed.” (SPM2)
Anchoring and adjustment is a psychological heuristic that
influences the way people intuitively assess probabilities.
However, these adjustments are usually insufficient, giving the
initial anchor a great deal of influence over future assessments.
This heuristic generates a cognitive bias through which people
rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered when
making decisions [34]. As exemplified below, the questioning role
of the SPM, thus acting as a facilitator, aims to uncover new
situations that where not thought of by the team members.
- “Sometimes we can change the task estimates and the
plans based on this type of questioning. I stand like a
client questioning things.” (SPM4)
Also, when discussing with the team members in order to make a
decision, the SPMs can often face the mere-exposure effect [35],
which is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to
develop a preference for things they are familiar with.
- “People are used to a certain type of approach and
anywhere they work they will always consider the same
one, and this can be a problem.” (SPM2)
4.4 Relating factors and building propositions
The next step in the data analysis was drawing relationships
among the factors, grounded in the data, thus building the
propositions that communicate a particular view of the
phenomenon.
The experience of the SPMs influenced by employment time in
the organization, experience of managing projects and performing
other project roles influences the decisions made during the
project. This result is aligned with the experiment conducted by
Huff and Prybutok [36] which showed that experience, especially
in project management and related to the subject area, has
significant influence on the decisions made. When adopting agile
methods, the locus of decision-making moves from the project
manager to the software development team, and the decision-
making process changes from individual and centralized to shared
and decentralized [33]. In this scenario, the SPMs' role is focused
in questioning by promoting reflection by the team members and
stakeholders. Therefore:
Proposition 1: The SPMs’ experience influences their capacity to
make decisions by questioning and promoting reflection by team
members during participatory decision-making.
The collaborative decision-making, which involves stakeholders
with diverse backgrounds and goals, requires some skills of the
SPMs. During this process, the autonomy of the SPMs influences
on their creativity. The systemic view of the project was pointed
out as being important because it allowed them to bring other
factors not initially considered by the team members and other
stakeholders when making decisions. This is influenced by
communication and the negotiation competence of the SPM as
well as their capacity to be organized and manage risks
proactively. Also, the self-control was stated as important in order
to not make a decision influenced by emotions in a stressful
situation. This leads to the following proposition:
Proposition 2: The autonomy of the SPMs impacts on their
facilitation capacity which is also influenced by their systemic
view of the project, communication and negotiation competence,
organizational ability, and proactive risk management, along with
self-control.
Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent in software
projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting
decisions, which need a constant feedback through client
involvement and iterative planning. As stated by Williams and
Cockburn [37], the agile methodologies are developed to embrace,
rather than reject, higher rates of change. In this scenario,
feedback loops constitute the core element. Therefore:
Proposition 3: The constant feedback aims to minimize the
uncertainty when making complex decisions, which can be
obtained through client involvement and iterative planning.
As stated by the SPMs, the lessons learned and stored in
documents were rarely used. Instead, they focused on knowledge
sharing with the team members and colleagues from other projects
before making decisions which are influenced by the team
members' technical competence. The participatory decision-
making through which the SPM promotes reflection, minimizes
the possibility of a decision based on a recent event in the mind of
an individual (availability bias) or relying too heavily on the first
piece of information offered (anchoring), thus influencing on
effective decisions. This leads to the following proposition:
Proposition 4: The knowledge sharing influences the
participatory decision-making, which is favored by the team
members' technical competence thus minimizing the negative
effects of the availability bias and anchoring.
4.5 Building the central story
Finally, the propositions presented in the previous section were
combined in order to build the central story that explains decision-
making in software project management as illustrated in Figure 5.
Considering the context in which this research was conducted,
decision-making in software project management is based on
knowledge sharing, by looking for the first workable option rather
than trying to find the best possible option. In this process the
experience of the SPMs influence their capacity to ask questions
to promote reflection by the team members.
This facilitation capacity is impacted by the autonomy of the
SPMs, communication and negotiation capacity, systemic view of
the project, as well as the capacity to be organized. Also, the self-
control was pointed out as being important in order to not make a
decision influenced by emotions in a stressful situation. Also, by
exercising proper risk management, the SPMs can achieve a
comfort level within the unknowns that exist in projects.
Constant feedback aims to minimize the uncertainty inherent to
software projects, which can be obtained through the client
involvement and iterative planning, which confirms the influence
of the agile practices in effective decisions. The SPMs focus on
knowledge sharing before making decisions which is influenced
by the team members' technical competence. The participatory
decision-making through which the SPM promotes reflections
31
tends to minimize the negative effects of the availability and
anchoring biases.
Figure 5. Core factors and relationships.
5. CONCLUSIONS
This research about decision-making in software project
management has produced important insights about factors that
seem to influence effective and ineffective decisions made in
software projects. In this article we presented the results based on
a qualitative case study of a private organization.
Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent to software
projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting
decisions in an argument-driven way. Decision-making in
software project management is influenced by individual and
contextual factors and it is based on knowledge sharing involving
the SPM, team members and stakeholders instead of using
analytical models of decision-making, which confirms the
naturalistic decision-making models. The feedback provided by
SPMs at the end of the interviews showed their interest in the
evaluation of the decision-making process from this perspective, a
subject not yet studied in their training courses in project
management, which should have a more focus on the SPM
competences than processes when considering decision-making.
The identification of the factors related to cognitive biases was not
straightforward. As the axial coding evolved, we noticed that
some practices and attitudes were related to the susceptibility to
some cognitive biases, serving as a starting point for further
investigation.
The next phase in our investigation is to refine the research
protocol including specific questions to deepen knowledge on the
identified elements as well as using multiple data collection
techniques in addition to the interviews such as observation and
document analysis in order to enable the construction of a
substantive theory from multiple case studies.
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