ICSA 2025
Mon 31 March - Fri 4 April 2025 Odense, Denmark

Cognitive biases are predictable, systematic errors in human reasoning. They influence decision-making in various areas, including architectural decision-making, where architects face many choices. For example, anchoring can cause architects to unconsciously prefer the first architectural solution that they came up with, without considering any solution alternatives. Prior research suggests that training individuals in debiasing techniques during a practical workshop can help reduce the impact of biases. The goal of this study was to design and evaluate a debiasing workshop with individuals at various stages of their professional careers. To test the workshop’s effectiveness, we performed an experiment with 16 students and 20 practitioners, split into control and workshop group pairs. We recorded and analyzed their think-aloud discussions about improving the architectures of systems they collaborated on. The workshop improved the participants’ argumentation when discussing architectural decisions and increased the use of debiasing techniques taught during the workshop. This led to the successful reduction of the researched biases’ occurrences. In particular, anchoring and optimism bias occurrences decreased significantly. We also found that practitioners were more susceptible to cognitive biases than students, so the workshop had a more substantial impact on practitioners. We assume that the practitioners’ attachment to their systems may be the cause of their susceptibility to biases. Finally, we identified factors that may reduce the effectiveness of the debiasing workshop. On that basis, we prepared a set of teaching suggestions for educators. Overall, we recommend using this workshop to educate both students and experienced practitioners about the typical harmful influences of cognitive bias on architectural decisions and how to avoid them.

Thu 3 Apr

Displayed time zone: Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris change

12:30 - 13:30
Software Development Practices and Technical Debt IResearch Papers / New and Emerging Ideas at Main Hall (O100)
Chair(s): Torben Worm University of Southern Denmark
12:30
15m
Paper
Axiomatic Software Architecture
New and Emerging Ideas
12:45
15m
Research paper
Debiasing Architectural Decision-Making: An Experiment With Students and Practitioners
Research Papers
Klara Borowa Warsaw University of Technology, Rodrigo Rebouças de Almeida Federal University of Paraiba, Marion Wiese University of Hamburg, Germany
Pre-print
13:00
15m
Research paper
Tracing the Lifecycle of Architecture Technical Debt in Software Systems: A Dependency Approach
Research Papers
Edi Sutoyo Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen, Paris Avgeriou University of Groningen, The Netherlands, Andrea Capiluppi Brunel University
13:15
15m
Research paper
Architecture as Code
Research Papers
Alessio Bucaioni Mälardalen University, Amleto Di Salle Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), Ludovico Iovino Gran Sasso Science Institute, L'Aquila, Italy, Patrizio Pelliccione Gran Sasso Science Institute, L'Aquila, Italy, Franco Raimondi Middlesex University
Pre-print
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