Application of Social Network Theory to Software Development: The problem of Task Allocation

To systematize software development, many process models have been proposed over the years. These models focus on the sequence of steps used by developers to create reliable software. Though these processmodels have helped companies to gain certification and attain global standards, they don’t take into account interpersonal interactions and various other social aspects of software development organizations. In this paper we tackle one crucial part of the Coordination problem in Software Development, namely the problem of task assignment in a team. We propose a methodology to test a hypothesis based on how social networks can be used to improve coordination in Software Industry. In a pilot case study based on 4 teams of Masters Student working in a globally distributed environment (Holland and India), the social network structures along with the task distribution in each of the teams were analyzed. In each case we observed patterns, which could be used to test many hypotheses on team coordination and task allocation between them.