Linking software process modeling with Markov decision theory

Author

Padberg, Frank

Author_Institution

Fak. fur Inf., Karlsruhe Univ., Germany

Volume

2

fYear

2004

Firstpage

152

Abstract

Scheduling is a notoriously difficult task for managers of software projects. The time needed to complete some development activity in a software project is hard to estimate; feedback between activities causes rework and delays. The author presents a dynamic software process model and its formalization as a discrete-time Markov decision process. The model focuses on capturing how the feedback between development activities affects the cost and schedule of a software project. The model explicitly represents scheduling actions, component coupling, and rework caused by design changes. We use the MDP model to compute optimal strategies for several sample projects and analyze the resulting optimal strategies.

Keywords

Markov processes; decision theory; optimisation; project management; scheduling; software cost estimation; software development management; software process improvement; MDP model; Markov decision theory; component coupling; development activity feedback; discrete-time Markov decision process; dynamic software process modeling; optimal strategy computing; scheduling; software project cost; software project management; software project schedule; Costs; Decision theory; Delay effects; Delay estimation; Feedback; Joining processes; Optimal scheduling; Processor scheduling; Project management; Stochastic processes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Computer Software and Applications Conference, 2004. COMPSAC 2004. Proceedings of the 28th Annual International

ISSN

0730-3157

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2209-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CMPSAC.2004.1342699

Filename

1342699