The Assessment of Importance of Selected Issues of Software Engineering, IT Project Management, and Programming Paradigms Based on Graphical AHP and Fuzzy C-Means

In this study, we present the results of surveys conducted in a group of employees and students of IT faculties presenting the answers to the most important, in our opinion, issues related to software engineering (SE), IT project management, and programming paradigms. The above topics are chosen because of their high relevance to the professional community. The participants taking part in the experiments quantified their input through the process of pairwise comparisons (a so-called Analytic Hierarchy Process, AHP) using an innovative highly interactive approach based on a graphic communication means. The generic AHP method was augmented by the optimization mechanisms delivered by the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) in order to deliver the highest possible consistency of responses of the participants. Moreover, we demonstrate a method based on Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) filtering highly inconsistent and unreal experts' assessments. In a series of experiments, we demonstrate the accuracy and stability of the AHP method based on graphical environment. We discuss two variants of aggregation of experts' opinions according to their level of experience in the field of interest. Finally, we show the efficiency of the FCM as the method of preselection of experts' evaluations.