The document discusses the influence of group decision-making (GDM) on architectural design decisions, emphasizing its importance in enhancing collective decision processes. It presents findings from research on GDM practices in architecture-related contexts, identifying challenges such as groupthink, information asymmetry, and issues with decision satisfaction among stakeholders. An evaluation framework is proposed to assess the suitability of architectural decision-making methods for GDM, emphasizing the need for systematic practices that incorporate conflict resolution and stakeholder preferences.

1. The influence of Group Decision
Making on Architecture Design
Decisions
@MARCH 2019
Henry Muccini
DISIM Department
University of L’ Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy
henry.muccini@univaq.it - @muccinihenry
Slides available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/henry.muccini/

2. Special thanks to Smrithi Rekha V. whose
contribution is substantial for this research
line.
Some of this research has been also carried out with Ivano
Malavolta, and Damien Andrew Tamburri.

3. “Group decision-making is a research
area that aims to understand and
develop methods to enhance the
collective decision process” [IST2018]

4. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
6
Architecting in a picture
ADD

5. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
7
Collaborative Decision Making
ADD
ADD
ADD
ADD
GDM

6. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
8
Group Decision Making
Group decision making =
1. multiple people taking decisions (social
attachment)
2. multiple roles/stakeholders with different concerns
(42010)

7. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
10
Group Decision Making
• Group characteristics:
• size, composition and cohesion
• the stages in the formation of groups,
• information exchange
within the group,
• GDM methods,
• issues faced

8. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
11

9. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
12
https://bit.ly/2U4O1Fm

10. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
13
https://bit.ly/2JwJwj5

11. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
14
Main Factors (by the audience)

12. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
15
Main Factors (by me)
Social Links
among team
members
Social Links
among team
members
ContextContext
Type/Importance
of Decisions
Type/Importance
of Decisions
Conflicts
management
Conflicts
management
Norms and
Regulations
Norms and
Regulations
Group
characteristics
Group
characteristics
Selection Strategy
(e.g., voting)
Selection Strategy
(e.g., voting)

13. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
16
Main factors by the GGPS
16
General Group Problem-Solving (GGPS), 1993 [6]
(generic model of GDM)
impacts
impacts
impacts

14. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
17
Main factors by Saaty and Vargas
17
Thomas L. Saaty and Luis G. Vargas, 2006 [5]

15. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
18Henry Muccini, Damian Andrew Tamburri, V. Smrithi Rekha:
On the Social Dimensions of Architectural Decisions. ECSA 2015: 137-145

16. Why shall we, software architects,
care?

17. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
20
RQ1: What are the existing
group decision-making
practices in real world SA
groups?
RQ2: Are the group decision-
making techniques currently
being practiced in line with
techniques in GDM literature?
RQ3: What are the challenges
that SA groups face while
making architecture-related
group decisions?
RQ4: How satisfied are SA
group members with various
aspects of GDM?26 different organizations
35 practitioners

18. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
21
RQ1 (GDM practices in industry)
1. 3-5 people involved
in architecture
decision making
1. Laughlin empirically
proved that 3-5 is
the ideal group size
for an efficient
performance
56%
26%
18%
people involved in ADD
up to 5
up to 10
bigger than 10

19. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
22
RQ1 (GDM practices in industry)
2. Teams are mostly
homogeneous
(middle management
employees)
3. Mostly «discussion-
based» and
«democratic»
GDM.
2. it could lead to groupthink
3. Democratic and Laissez-
faire approaches. These
may cause information
asymmetry, that reduces
team performance (no
systematic may impair
decision quality)

20. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
23
GroupThink
The tendency of groups to try to
minimize conflict and reach consensus
without sufficiently testing, analyzing,
and evaluating their ideas.
The pressures for conformity restrict the
thinking of the group, bias its analysis,
promote simplistic and stereotyped
thinking, and stifle individual creative
and independent thoughts

21. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
24
Information Asymmetry
In contract theory and
economics, information
asymmetry deals with the
study of decisions in
transactions where one party
has more or better
information than the other.
This creates an imbalance of
power in transactions,
which can sometimes cause
the transactions to go awry, a
kind of market failure in the
worst case

22. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
25
RQ1 (GDM practices in industry)
4. Distributed vs co-located
teams
5. Consensus
83%
17%
Distributed vs Co-located teams
distributed teams
co-located teams
83%
17%
How to get to a consensus
Discussion-based
rule-based

23. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
26
RQ2 (GDM practice vs GDM theory)
1. GDM practices
combine different
GDM
(unstructured)
GDM methods
2. Different
stakeholders are
given different
weights
2. seniority (65%),
expertise (9%), specific
factors (business, political,
technological) (26%)
71
65
17
11
9
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
BRAINSTORMING
CONSENSUS-BASED
VOTING
DELPHI
AHP
Type of used GDM

24. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
27
GDM methods
• The participants freely propose a list of alternatives. Then,
brainstorm over them to arrive at a final decision. A leader
moderates (supporting the generation of ideas).
Brainstorming
• Alternatives are provided by the participants, and then
voted.Voting
• Experts answer questionnaires in a distributed and anonymous way.
A facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’
forecasts (after each round). (avoids influence between experts)
Delphi
•Consensus: several alternatives are listed, an effort is made to
achieve maximum level of consensus. Selection: once there is high
level of agreement among participants selected and the decision is
made the best alternative are selected.
Consensus-
Selection
• The problem is modelled as goals, alternatives and criteria.
Participants are normally experts who do a pairwise comparison of
alternatives based on certain criteria. The results are then
synthesized to make the final decision
AHP

25. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
28
RQ2 (GDM practice vs GDM theory)
3. How often major
decisions are omitted?
Why?
A) Time Constraints 13%
B) Lack of Communication
and Consultation - 13%
C) Lack of Knowledge and
Expertise - 13%
E) Poor Exploration of
Requirements and Solutions -
13%
F) dominance of certain
members leading to others
keeping quiet 25%
13%
47%
40%
How often have major decision been
omitted in the GDM Process
never
rarely
often

26. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
29
RQ3 (Challenges in group decisions)
1. GMD issues
63 66
54
28
17
A. GOALS ARE NOT
UNDERSTOOD BY
THE ENTIRE GROUP
B. LONG TIME TO
ARRIVE AT FINAL
CONSENSUS
C. PRESENCE OF
POWER
DIFFERENCES
D. ACCEPTING
LOW-RISKY SIMPLE
SOLUTIONS
E. MORE EXTREME
OR RADICAL
DECISIONS IN A
GROUP
Challenges

27. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
30

28. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
31
RQ4 (SA members satisfaction of their GDM)

29. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
32
In summary
GDM impacts the quality of
the software architecture
design decisions

30. Evaluation Framework

31. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
34
Evaluation framework definition
RQ1) how to evaluate the
architecture design decision
methods’ suitability for group decision
making?
RQ2) how adequate existing
architecture design decision methods
are for group decision making?
34

32. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
35

33. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
36
General Group Problem-
Solving (GGPS), 1993
(generic model of GDM)
Thomas L. Saaty and Luis G.
Vargas, 2006

34. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
37
Evaluation framework definition (3/3)
37
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information

35. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
38
2. ADD methods selection
[10] Falessi, et al. Decision-making techniques for software
architecture design: A comparative survey. ACM Computing
Surveys (CSUR) 43(4) (2011)
[16] Tofan, et al. Past and future of software architectural
decisions a systematic mapping study. IST 56(8) (2014)
38
Only decision-making (DM) processes/methods
Decision methods covering broad aspects of DM
Coverage of different SA DM
Dealing with conflicting multiple objectives
We included
Output: 22 DM processes/method [17-38]

36. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
39

37. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
40
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
40
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
Few methods present an explicit
problem identification step.
At best, the process starts with
identification of alternatives
(A good problem identification
step -> better problem space
analysis
-> high quality GDM practice [5])

38. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
41
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
41
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
Very few methods allow
for a group to discuss and evolve
alternatives.
Multi-criteria decision-making
methods must allow for the generation
and filtering of alternatives through a
process of discussion and deliberation
which ensures more participation of
group members [5].

39. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
42
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
42
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
The selected methods allow for
preference indication
but it is mostly individuals
who rank the alternatives.
They do not
seem to allow multiple
stakeholders to indicate
preferences.

40. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
43
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
43
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
(almost) none of the methods
account for hierarchy or
expertise differences
among stakeholders.

41. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
44
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
44
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
no method accounts for
conflict management strategies.
The sources of conflict,
levels of conflict and appropriate
conflict resolution styles could be
applied to the SA
decision-making methods.
Collaborative style of conflict
resolution is the most popular [1], so, it
shall be supported

42. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
45
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
45
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
Very few allow for multiple
stakeholder
preference and hence they
alone discuss decision-rules.
(The more rigorous
and scientific the decision-rule is, the
better the quality of decisions made
[5], [14])

43. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
46
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
46
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
Two of the chosen methods
seem to indicate the presence of
shared visual representation of
information.
(Information recall has been
found to be key in making the
knowledge pool more rich)

44. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
47
3. Evaluation framework applied to
ADD methods
47
Problem Identification
Development of alternatives
Preference Indication
Prioritizing Group Members
Provision for conflict resolution
Group Decision Rules
Information Exchange and Recall
Revisiting Information
Only two methods are iterative
in nature.
The more number of times the
group is able to exchange
information, uncover unshared
information and revisit the
alternatives, the higher the
quality of decisions.

45. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
48
Reflections
 Most of these methods were not explicitly designed to
involve groups;
 Very few methods provisioned an explicit systematic method
for discussing and evolving alternatives;
 None of the surveyed methods had specific aspects of
conflict resolution;
 Few methods allowed for multiple stakeholder preference
 Why?
48

46. Ongoing work

47. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
50
Experimenting the GDM
Objective : To understand the effectiveness and
efficiency of SA groups through experiments
Outcomes measured:
• N° of valid alternatives- Quantity ,
• Quality of Alternatives as evaluated by judges with experts -
Scores,
• satisfaction of group members
a. Group1 : No GDM, Homogenous
b. Group 2: GDM, Homogenous
c. Group 3: No GDM, Heterogeneous
d. Group 4: GDM, Heterogeneous

48. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
51
• Results indicate that the Group Decision
Making method plays a significant role in the
generation of alternatives and those with GDM
generate higher number of valid alternatives
• GDM plays a significant role in the quality of
alternatives. Those that use GDM generate better
alternatives
• When the feedback scores were summed up, they
did not show any significant difference among the
groups, though this has to be further analysed

49. Concluding

50. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
53
Not anymore on a Ivory tower
The architect
The team with the
architect

51. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
54
“the graph of interactions, patterned
relations and arrangements emerging
between individuals in the same endeavor”...
Organizational Social Structure
Dev. 1
Dev. 4
Dev. 2
Dev. 3
Dev. N-1
Dev. N
…
Art. 2
Art. 3Art. 1
Art. 4
Art. N
Task Allocations

52. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
55
The 13+ Organisational Types
[TLVV2012] Damian A. Tamburri, Patricia Lago, Hans Van Vliet. Organizational social structures
for software engineering - ACM Computing Surveys (2012) 1–35
(at least) 81 properties observed so far that
define types

53. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
56
A first attempt at an overlap

54. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
57
In summary
How to make GDM
effective and efficient?

55. Henry Muccini @ MARCH 2019@ICSA2019
58
Systematic GDM
Fitting into the Organizational Social Structure
Development of alternatives
Conflict resolution & convergence
Prioritizing Group Members
Minimizing Groupthink, Asymmetry, etc.
Tool support