Software project control: an experimental investigation of judgment with fallible information

Software project management is becoming an increasingly critical task in many organizations. While the macro-level aspects of project planning and control have been addressed extensively, there is a serious lack of research on the micro-empirical analysis of individual decision making behavior. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on software engineering Vol. 19; no. 6; pp. 603 - 612
Main Authors Abdel-Hamid, T.K., Sengupta, K., Ronan, D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY IEEE 01.06.1993
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IEEE Computer Society
Subjects
Applied sciences
Computer industry
Computer science; control theory; systems
Costs
Decision making
Defense industry
Design specifications
Exact sciences and technology
Heuristic
Industrial control
Job shop scheduling
Laboratories
Planning
Productivity
Programming
Project management
Simulation
Software
Software development
Software engineering
Studies
Systems development
Software productivity
Software management
Project control
Experimentation
Anchoring
Software engineering
Software project management
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Summary:Software project management is becoming an increasingly critical task in many organizations. While the macro-level aspects of project planning and control have been addressed extensively, there is a serious lack of research on the micro-empirical analysis of individual decision making behavior. The heuristics deployed to cope with the problems of poor estimation and poor visibility that hamper software project planning and control are investigated, and the implications for software project management are examined. A laboratory experiment in which subjects managed a simulated software development project is reviewed. The subjects were given project status information at different stages of the lifecycle and had to assess software productivity in order to dynamically readjust project plans. A conservative anchoring and adjustment heuristic is shown to explain the subjects' decisions quite well. Implications for software project planning and control are presented.< >
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0098-5589
1939-3520
DOI:10.1109/32.232025