Dynamic resource scheduling in disruption-prone software development environments

Abstract

Good resource scheduling plays a pivotal role in successful software development projects. However, effective resource scheduling is complicated by such disruptions as requirements changes, urgent bug fixing, incorrect or unexpected process execution, and staff turnover. Such disruptions demand immediate attention, but can also impact the stability of other ongoing projects. Dynamic resource rescheduling can help suggest strategies for addressing such potentially disruptive events by suggesting how to balance the need for rapid response and the need for organizational stability. This paper proposes a multi-objective rescheduling method to address the need for software project resource management that is able to suggest strategies for addressing such disruptions. A genetic algorithm is used to support rescheduling computations. Examples used to evaluate this approach suggest that it can support more effective resource management in disruption-prone software development environments. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.