Towards a Substantive Theory of Decision-Making in Software Project Management: Preliminary Findings from a Qualitative Study José Adson O. G. da Cunha Center for Informatics, UFPE Av. Jornalista Anibal Fernandes, s/n, Cid. Univ., 50740-560, Recife - PE +55 81 21268430 jaogc@cin.ufpe.br Fabio Q. B. da Silva Hermano P. de Moura Center for Informatics, UFPE Av. Jornalista Anibal Fernandes, s/n, Cid. Univ., 50740-560, Recife - PE +55 81 21268430 fabio@cin.ufpe.br hermano@cin.ufpe.br Francisco J. S. Vasconcellos College of Computing, UFMS Cid. Univ., 79070-900, Campo Grande - MS +55 67 33457910 francisco.vasconcellos@ufms.br ABSTRACT Context: In software project management, the decision-making process is a complex set of tasks largely based on human relations and individual knowledge and cultural background. The factors that affect the decisions of the software project managers (SPMs) as well as their potential consequences require attention because project delays and failures might be related to a series of poor decisions. Goals: To understand how SPMs make decisions based on how they interpret their experiences in the workplace. Further, to identify antecedents and consequences of those decisions in order to increase the effectiveness of project management. We also aim to refine the research design for future investigations. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with SPMs within a Brazilian large governmental organization and a Brazilian large private organization. Results: We found that decision-making in software project management is based on knowledge sharing in which the SPM acts as a facilitator. This phenomenon is influenced by individual factors, such as experience, knowledge, personality, organizational ability, communication, negotiation, interpersonal relationship and systemic vision of the project and by situational factors such as the autonomy of the SPM, constant feedback and team members' technical competence. Conclusions: Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent to software projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting decisions in an argument-driven way. From the initial relationships among the identified factors, the research design was refined. CCS Concepts • Software and its engineering ➝ Software creation and management ➝ Software development process management. Keywords Software Project Management, Decision-Making, Qualitative Study. 1. INTRODUCTION While organizations are permanent structures that emphasize functional structure, projects are temporary endeavors that are predicated on a deadline and the ultimate delivery of a product, service or benefit [1]. Decision-making in the complex global business environment is increasingly challenging and vulnerable to unforeseen circumstances. In software development and evolution, many decisions have to be made concerning processes, products, tools, methods and techniques. All these questions are confronted by different objectives and constraints. 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. Therefore, overlooking the complexity of the decision-making process is a risk that could negatively impact the projects and, consequently, the organizational performance. The importance of managing the way in which project decisions are made is evident by the numerous publications that discuss decision-making in several areas of project management, such as decision-making as an integral part of project management [3][4], the relationship between decision-making and risk [5][6], product development decisions [7][8][9], and decision-making in the global development context [10][11]. In a recent systematic literature review on behavioral software engineering (BSE), Lenberga et al. [12] indicated that this research area is growing and considering an increasing number of concepts from psychology and social science, but the results also show that several concepts have few studies in SE, such as decision-making. This article presents the preliminary results of an on-going research focused on understanding how software project managers (SPMs) make decisions by 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 situational factors that lead to more or less successful project decisions. The remainder of this article is organized as follows: Section II presents a theoretical background; Section III details the research method; Section IV presents the results of the qualitative research and implications for the practice of software project management; Section V presents the threats to validity; and, finally, Section VI presents our conclusions. 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