A Novel Prototype Tool for Intelligent Software Project Scheduling and Staffing Enhanced with Personality Factors

Abstract

Software project managers are often faced with challenges when trying to effectively staff and schedule projects. Incorrectly planning and estimating the execution of tasks frequently causes software projects to be delivered late and/or over budget, whereas not selecting the appropriate developers to carry out tasks may produce lower-quality, defective software products. To combat these challenges, this paper presents IntelliSPM -- a tool aiming to support software project management activities consisting of several optimization mechanisms borrowed from the area of Computational Intelligence. The tool takes into account technical aspects but also significant human factors, which have been found to play a crucial role in software quality and developer productivity. The purpose of IntelliSPM is to offer suggestions to project managers containing a set of possible project schedules and staffing strategies that minimizes duration and maximizes resource usage. Several simulated and real-world projects were used during the validation process, with results showing that IntelliSPM is capable of providing that much-needed practical benefit to software companies to improve various aspects of development, such as performance and job satisfaction, whilst keeping within the general objectives and particular constraints of each software project.