Simulation of strategic management process of software projects : a dynamic approach

This research presents and validates a simulation model for the strategic management process of software projects. The proposed simulation model maps strategic decisions with parameters of strategic importance and links them to project management plans. Hence, the proposed simulation model is a complete framework for the analysis and the selection of strategic decisions for the development of software projects. The proposed framework integrates critical elements of software development projects, i.e. risk assessment, cost estimation and project management planning, for the analysis of strategic decisions which helps in choosing a strategic decision, among various strategic alternatives for the project, that suits the requirement of an organization the best. The simulation model captures the effects of strategic decisions on parameters of software projects in dynamic settings during the simulation of different phases of the development. The dynamic variations in project parameters affect project management plans. Capturing these variations of strategic parameters in dynamic settings brings out critical information about strategic decisions for the effective project management planning. This research work explains that the measure of risk and contingency estimates are fundamental, in-addition to risk assessment and cost estimation, for the strategic management of software development projects. Therefore, risk measure and contingency estimation models are developed for software projects. The proposed simulation model is generic, i.e. having generic components with plug-and-play interfaces; hence, it is independent of any risk assessment, cost estimation, risk measurement and contingency estimation models and project management tools for software development projects. This research presents a successful case study which shows that different strategic management decisions produce different sets of risk and cost options, as well as different project management plans for the development of software projects