Influence of Personality Types in Software Tasks Choices

TL;DR

This empirical study investigates how personality types influence role preferences among Cuban software developers, revealing patterns that can improve task assignment and project success.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence linking personality types to preferred roles in software development, aiding better task allocation.

Findings

System analyst, designer, and programmer are most preferred roles.

Tester and maintainer are least popular roles.

Patterns suggest personality influences role choice.

Abstract

According to psychology, not everybody can excel at all kinds of tasks. Thus, chances of a successful outcome of software development increase if people with particular personality types are assigned to their preferred tasks in the project. Likewise, software development depends significantly on how software practitioners perform their tasks. This empirical study surveys 100 Cuban software developers, who also teach or study at the University of Informatics Sciences in Havana, Cuba. This work aims to find possible patterns that link personality types to role preferences in a software life cycle. Among the various roles, system analyst, software designer, and programmer are found to be the most preferred among the participants. In contrast, software tester and software maintainer happen to be the least popular roles among software engineers.