IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v102y2001i1p157-17810.1023-a1010906116000.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncertainty Modelling in Software Development Projects (With Case Study)

Author

Listed:
  • Linet Özdamar
  • Ebru Alanya

Abstract

A project scheduling model tailored specifically for software development projects is proposed in this study. The model incorporates uncertainties related to activity durations and network topology. The first type of uncertainty exists due to error-prone coding which might result in elongated task durations caused by validation and debugging sessions. Furthermore, in practice, macro-activities represent groups of sub-tasks in order to simplify the planning and monitoring of the project. Due to the aggregation, it is more difficult to be precise on the duration of a macro-activity. The uncertainty related to the network topology is due to common database design issues or program modules shared among parallel tasks in the project network. These tasks become associated with each other through uncertain Start-to-Start (SS) precedence relationships. On the other hand, SS lags may also be the outcome of technological precedence relationships among pairs of activities. However, the imprecision underlying the work content of a predecessor activity leads to uncertain SS lags. Software development projects are human-intensive projects and hence, the duration of a task depends on the skill of the person assigned to the job as well as his/her learning rate. Thus, a task may be realized by alternative staff members which results in different expected task durations. Hence, a realistic model proposed for software development projects should incorporate staff assignment features under the uncertainties discussed above. In this study, we develop a mathematical model for software development projects and propose heuristic solution methods to be used by the project co-ordinator in preparing the project plan. The heuristic algorithms developed here are tested on real data provided by a consulting firm undertaking software development projects from manufacturing companies in Turkey. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Suggested Citation

  • Linet Özdamar & Ebru Alanya, 2001. "Uncertainty Modelling in Software Development Projects (With Case Study)," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 157-178, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:102:y:2001:i:1:p:157-178:10.1023/a:1010906116000
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1010906116000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1010906116000
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1010906116000?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kaut, Michal & Vaagen, Hajnalka & Wallace, Stein W., 2021. "The combined impact of stochastic and correlated activity durations and design uncertainty on project plans," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    2. Hongbo Li & Hanyu Zhu & Linwen Zheng & Fang Xie, 2024. "Software project scheduling under activity duration uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 338(1), pages 477-512, July.
    3. Hazır, Öncü & Ulusoy, Gündüz, 2020. "A classification and review of approaches and methods for modeling uncertainty in projects," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    4. Mengmeng Zhu & Hoang Pham, 2022. "A generalized multiple environmental factors software reliability model with stochastic fault detection process," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 311(1), pages 525-546, April.
    5. Öncü Hazir & Gündüz Ulusoy, 2020. "A classification and review of approaches and methods for modeling uncertainty in projects," Post-Print hal-02898162, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:102:y:2001:i:1:p:157-178:10.1023/a:1010906116000. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.