Software Development and Personality Traits

Abstract

Software is a word with a fuzzy perception. People who talk about software may be thinking about the structure of a program, the functionality of an application system, the look and feel of an interface or the overall user experience with a hardware-software environment. Software engineering spans both new software developments and the maintenance of legacy systems, each software life cycle phase bringing its own context of understanding about what matters, what can be designed, and what tools and methods are appropriate. Software engineering has become a very broad field of study; consequently the skills necessary to successfully work in this area thirty years ago may no longer apply. For instance, software design has become more than manipulating formal or semi-formal notations, but revolves around the interaction between designers and users; namely, the designer’s perception of what the user wants, and the user’s perception of what he/she really needs. Nowadays, successful software is developed after a tremendous amount of time has been spent with the user in the form of prototyping, experimentation and feedback. This is the proper life cycle of any useful software system. Research relating personality styles to software engineering has been both scattered and difficult to interpret uniformly. It may be that the relation between software engineering and personality styles is too complex to investigate. For instance, it may be that certain personality traits such as introversion/extraversion have a great impact on system analysis, but not so much on other phases. Thus, studies to determine which personality profiles are more attracted to what activities related to software development are of paramount importance. This article represents an important step towards a theory that links software engineering and personality styles.