When the project absolutely must get done: marrying the organization chart with the precedence diagram

ABSTRACT

Very little is new in project planning, but this is! We present a technique to marry the organization chart with a project's task precedence diagram. This permits us to simulate the project at a micro, project-specific level never before achieved. We can perform “what-if” scenarios related to organization structures, the deployment of specific individuals and skills, and the structure of information flow and exception-handling in a project. The tool used, ViteProject, was developed over the last ten years in a Stanford University laboratory, where substantial results have been achieved when applied to design activities other than software. We present our real-world experience with several software projects, where it has improved project visibility and allowed us to rationally optimize projects in a way hitherto impossible.

REFERENCES

• 1: Burton, Richard M., & Obel, B~rge. (1998). Strategic organizational diagnosis and design: developing
• 2: Kathleen M. Carley , Michael J. Prietula, Computational organization theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 1994
• 3: Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory. Norwell, MA: Kluwer. {Four issues per year, begun in October, 1995, ISSN 1381-298X}
• 4: Galbraith, Jay. (1974). Organization design: an information processing view. Interfaces, 4(3), 28-36.
• 5: Gersick, Connie. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31(1), 9-41.
• 6: Jin, Yan, & Levitt, Raymond. (Fall, 1996). The virtual design team: a computational model of project organizations. Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, 2(3), 171-196.
• 7: Levitt, Raymond. (1998). The ViteProject handbook: a user's guide to modeling and analyzing project work processes and organizations. Palo Alto: Vit~.
• 8: Lawrence H. Putnam , Ware Myers, Measures for Excellence: Reliable Software on Time, within Budget, Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, 1991

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.3 Software Management
          Subjects: Software development

General Terms:
Design, Management, Measurement, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
micro-estimation, project management, projection simulation