A Hybrid Model for Dynamic Simulation of Custom Software Projects in a Multiproject Environment

This paper describes SimHiProS, a hybrid simulation model of software production. The goal is to gain insight on the dynamics induced by resource sharing in multiproject management. In order to achieve it the hierarchy of decisions in a multiproject organization is modeled and some resource allocation methods based on algorithms from the OR/AI domain are used. Other critical issues such as the hybrid nature of software production and the effects of measurement and control are also incorporated in the model. Some first results are presented.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2004-06689-C03-03Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2007-67843-C06-0

Using Simulation to Visualise and Analyse Product- Process Dependencies in Software Development Projects

The core element of the PROFES improvement methodology is the concept of product-process dependency (PPD) models. The purpose of PPD models is to help focus process improvement activities to those development technologies and processes that are most effective with regards to achieving specific customer-defined product quality goals. This paper describes how system dynamics simulation models can be used to check the plausibility of achieving positive effects on software product quality when implementing improvement actions derived from PPD models. Basically, this is done through extending an existing generic software project simulation model with structures that represent expected local cause-effect mechanisms of the PPD models. By running simulations with the extended software project simulation model, the potential effects of the PPD models on product quality can be investigated at low cost before conducting pilot applications in real projects

Improving software development process through economic mechanism design

We introduce the novel concept of applying economic mechanism design to software development process, and aim to find ways to adjust the incentives and disincentives of the software organization to align them with the motivations of the participants in order to maximize the delivered value of a software project. We envision a set of principles to design processes that allow people to be self motivated but constantly working toward project goals. The resulting economic mechanism will rely on game theoretic principles (i.e. Stackelberg games) for leveraging the incentives, goals and motivation of the participants in the service of project and organizational goals