Nowadays, software engineers are busy keeping pace with the ever-growing
wealth of technologies (e.g., web-oriented, components, application
frameworks), and process models (e.g., agile, risk-oriented, model-driven).
These new technologies and process models reflect the challenges of
today’s software engineering (SE): building more complex software in
distributed teams, faster, and at a lower cost. However, the emphasis on
technologies and process models obscures the fact that SE is primarily a
human-based activity and that the success of a project or product is contingent
on the decisions made during engineering. Due to the nonmaterial
nature of software, the development process is characterized by a step-wise
reduction of uncertainty, mutual learning, continuous consensus building,
and many interdependent creative construction and accurate control activities.
This can only be balanced by a transparent and convincing decision
making process which supports all stakeholders in making their decisions
explicit, in convincing each other of the value of these decisions, and
in sharing the work of implementing (in the most general sense) these
decisions.