The influence of checklists and roles on software practitioner risk perception and decision-making

This paper investigates: (1) the influence of risk checklists on software practitioner risk perception and decision-making, and (2) the influence of role (inside project manager vs. outside consultant) on software practitioner risk perception and decision-making. Evidence on these points is presented based on a role playing experiment conducted with 128 software practitioners. Results show that (1) the risk checklist helped subjects identify more risks than they would identify without the aid of a checklist, whereas (2) the role assigned to subjects did not seem to affect either their risk perception or behavior. Moreover, the use of a risk checklist shaped subjects’ perceptions of which risks were salient in the scenario, whereas the number of risks identified did not affect their decision-making. Interestingly, subjects using a checklist were able to identify more seeded risks in the scenario, but they also identified more unseeded risks. Implications for research and practice are discussed.