Title :
A Mathematical Model for Explaining the Mythic Man-Month
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Calgary Univ., Alta.
Abstract :
This paper presents a collaborative work theory for explaining the mythic man-month in software project organization. A mathematical model of the mechanisms and behaviors of group workload in software engineering is created, which reveals the transformability between labor and time in software engineering projects. Based on the model, the actual effort, labor allocation, and project duration can be quantitatively analyzed. A set of laws of work organization for software engineering are formally described, which can be applied in optimizing software engineering decisions on best labor allocations, shortest durations, and lowest costs in project organization
Keywords :
mathematical analysis; project management; software development management; collaborative work theory; group workload; mathematical model; mythic man-month; software engineering decision; software project organization; Application software; Collaborative software; Collaborative work; Cost function; Drives; Engineering management; Mathematical model; Project management; Software engineering; Standardization; Software engineering; duration determination; labor allocation; man-month; work organization; workload analysis;
Conference_Titel :
Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2006. CCECE '06. Canadian Conference on
Conference_Location :
Ottawa, Ont.
Print_ISBN :
1-4244-0038-4
Electronic_ISBN :
1-4244-0038-4
DOI :
10.1109/CCECE.2006.277687
