Chapter Ten. Software Architecture: Psychological Warfare

Psychological operations are used in warfare to convey selected information and indicators in order to influence emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and, ultimately, behavior [DOD 1987]. It may seem strange to suggest that the study of psychological operations has any relevance to software architecture. However, psychological operations can be as blatant as an outside consultant telling a project team that he or she is an expert beyond question and all software developers must immediately adopt his or her proposals, or as subtle as funny jokes and stories with seemingly no additional sinister purpose. Psychological operations can be used positively to manage project expectations and to ensure that software quality issues are addressed or negatively to sell inappropriate software products or avoid constructive criticism.

"Persuasive efforts are labeled propagandistic when someone judges that the action which is the goal of the persuasive effort will be advantageous to the persuader but not in the best interests of the persuadee. There are no objective techniques for determining the best interests of the persons involved in a persuasive effort. Consequently the social psychologist does not decide whether or not a given effort is propagandistic. Propaganda comes into psychology as a judgment made by others. We can study propaganda as we can study good and evil. We don't make the judgments but we can study the phenomena so judged."

-Roger Brown, Words and Things (1958)

This chapter introduces psychological techniques that will be of immediate and practical value. While it is not the intent to transform software architects into propagandists, such skills, used sparingly, are a powerful weapon in any architect's arsenal. Mastery of these techniques should provide tools for effective persuasion in both group situations and face-to-face interactions. When these techniques are properly applied and with the proper intentions of proving quality and value of a software project, a software architect can influence official estimates and ultimately produce in others favorable behaviors. Also, do not lose sight of an even more significant advantage in the lessons of this chapter. Propagandists, frauds, and some unscrupulous salespeople love shortcuts, especially those that bypass rational thought. Rather than appeal to the reason of other people, they succeed through agitating emotions, exploiting insecurities, and verbally bullying others. Knowledge of these techniques exposes some of their tricks and enables software architects to resist them and deal with such characters on a higher, more rational level.