Ohjelmistokehityksen hukka ja kognitiiviset vinoumat
Noel Solomon Hagos · LUTPub (LUT University) · 2025
This thesis explores the connection between cognitive biases and software development waste in software development. Software engineering is a socio-technical field, which means that human decision-making is influenced by both technical and social factors. The primary objective is to identify how specific, common biases cause inefficiency and waste in software development. The thesis uses Daniel Kahneman’s system to further analyse what cognitive biases are and how they arise. The study was conducted with narrative literature review and conceptual analysis. Existing literature was used to gather essential information about cognitive biases and their documented effects. The analysis focused on six biases: overconfidence, confirmation, anchoring, sunk cost fallacy, availability, and status quo bias and mapped their connections to nine established categories of software development waste. The findings reveal a strong and consistent relationship between cognitive biases and software development waste. Overconfidence, confirmation, and anchoring biases were identified as the most prevalent, directly contributing to major wastes such as building the wrong features and rework. The results indicate that awareness and mitigation of these biases could improve decision-making and reduce software development waste.