Agent-based modeling of resource allocation in software projects based on personality and skill

Abstract

The success or failure of software development group work depends on the group members' personalities, as well as their skills in performing various tasks associated with the project. Moreover, in the reality, tasks have a dynamic nature and their requirements change over time. Therefore, the effect of task dynamics on the teamwork must be taken into consideration. To do so, after describing a general approach to select effective team members based on their personalities and skills, we consider as an example a comparative multi-agent simulation study contrasting two different sample strategies that managers could use to select team members: by minimizing team over-competency and by minimizing team under-competency. Based on the simulation results, we drive a set of propositions about the conditions under which there are and are not performance benefits from employing a particular strategy for task allocation. Also, we propose a simulation environment that could provide a low cost tool for managers and researchers to gain better insights about effectiveness of different task allocation strategies and employees with different attributes in dynamic environments.