Student Name: Faiaz Rahman

The Impact of Goals on Software Project Management: An Experimental Investigation

This article is based on a study carried out using a role-playing simulation game to investigate the impact of project goals on managerial decision making and, ultimately, performance in software project environments. In the dynamically complex world of software development, an individual cannot assume a oneto-one correspondence between goals and actions without any supporting empirical evidence. The study described in this article is vital because it looks to gather this empirical evidence that establishes a relationship between goal, decision making and performance. The article starts off the description by providing a conceptual background which shows the direct (effort, persistence etc) and indirect (strategy development) effect of goals on performance. This section also provides information on how some studies show that the effect of goals on performance may disappear or reverse if the tasks become increasing complex with multiple, often ambiguous strategies requiring more strategic thinking rather than task effort. In the next section, the specifics of software project management are discussed. This section presents the complexities, costs and environmental uncertainty of software development. It talks about staffing decisions in two sectors, development and quality assurance, and how the combination of these two factors affects performance. Next, two research questions are identified. The first dealing with the effects of goals sets on planning and staff allocation strategies. The second, regarding the effect of project planning and staff allocation on project performance. The next section narrates the methodology of the simulation game, based on a systems dynamics model of the software development process where the subjects play roles of project managers, the first two decisions of whom is to determine desired total staff level and percentage of staff to allocate in quality assurance. Work performed and resources used are to be measured after 40 day intervals. Next, in the experimental design phase , the independent variable (project goal, categorized into two sets), dependent measures (cost, completion time, frequency of undetected defects) and decision variables (total staff level, staff allocated to QA, cost and schedule estimates) are identified. As the study was based on multiple goal sets (cost/quality), the findings presented two-fold effects of these goals. A cost/schedule goal led to lower cost whereas a quality/schedule goal led to higher quality. This conclusion, in turn supported the point that project goals can have a significant impact on the dynamic and adaptive project planning and control process and consequently, on the project outcome.

Student Name: Faiaz Rahman

Reference
Abdel-Hamid, T. K., Sengupta, K., Swett, C., MIS Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 531555 Article Link http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.utdallas.edu/stable/pdfplus/249488.pdf (Must Login to JStor through UTD McDermott Library using netID and password before downloading/ viewing article)