Evidence-based software engineering for practitioners

Software managers and practitioners often must make decisions about what technologies to employ on their projects. They might be aware of problems with their current development practices (for example, production bottlenecks or numerous defect reports from customers) and want to resolve them. Or, they might have read about a new technology and want to take advantage of its promised benefits. However, practitioners can have difficulty making informed decisions about whether to adopt a new technology because there's little objective evidence to confirm its suitability, limits, qualities, costs, and inherent risks. This can lead to poor decisions about technology adoption. Software engineers might make incorrect decisions about adopting new techniques it they don't consider scientific evidence about the techniques' efficacy. They should consider using procedures similar to ones developed for evidence-based medicine. Software companies are often under pressure to adopt immature technologies because of market and management pressures. We suggest that practitioners consider evidence-based software engineering as a mechanism to support and improve their technology adoption decisions.