Effect of staffing pattern on software project: An empirical analysis

Resource allocation in software development is important and many methods have been proposed. Related empirical research is yet scarce and evidence is required to validate the theoretical methods. This paper introduces the staffing pattern as a metric of resource distribution among project phases, and verifies its effect on software quality and productivity using real project data. The main findings are: (1) there exist different staffing patterns in reality; (2) the staffing pattern has significant effect on software quality (post-release defect density); (3) the staffing pattern has no significant effect on productivity; (4) the effort invested on test, document or code inspection possibly explains the effect of staffing pattern on software quality; (5) the effort consumed by rework perhaps counteracts the effect of other potential factors on productivity. Preliminary heuristics are suggested to resource allocation practices.