Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development
Almost everyone understands that budget fluctuations have an impact on software development, but it is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the impact and all the causes. This paper uses System Dynamics modeling to examine how gaps in funding affect software development productivity and product de...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM)
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98916 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-2573 |
| _version_ | 1826189756639215616 |
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| author | Trammell, Travis Madnick, Stuart E. Moulton, Allen |
| author2 | MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center |
| author_facet | MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center Trammell, Travis Madnick, Stuart E. Moulton, Allen |
| author_sort | Trammell, Travis |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Almost everyone understands that budget fluctuations have an impact on software development, but it is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the impact and all the causes. This paper uses System Dynamics modeling to examine how gaps in funding affect software development productivity and product delivery delay. The results provide decision makers with an improved sense of the negative impacts of budget fluctuations. Two key insights include the “ramp up tax” that slows development and the “gap tax” due to the loss of project-related skill and familiarity when employees are transferred off of a project and then return. The model experiments also compare the different impacts of temporarily stopping a project versus stretching out a project by temporarily reducing the funding level. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:20:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/98916 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:20:57Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/989162022-09-23T12:25:25Z Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development Trammell, Travis Madnick, Stuart E. Moulton, Allen MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center Sloan School of Management Madnick, Stuart E. Moulton, Allen Almost everyone understands that budget fluctuations have an impact on software development, but it is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the impact and all the causes. This paper uses System Dynamics modeling to examine how gaps in funding affect software development productivity and product delivery delay. The results provide decision makers with an improved sense of the negative impacts of budget fluctuations. Two key insights include the “ramp up tax” that slows development and the “gap tax” due to the loss of project-related skill and familiarity when employees are transferred off of a project and then return. The model experiments also compare the different impacts of temporarily stopping a project versus stretching out a project by temporarily reducing the funding level. Defense Intelligence Agency (U.S.) (MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract 16-11-TCO-0013) 2015-09-28T13:25:41Z 2015-09-28T13:25:41Z 2013-10 2013-03 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 9781632660541 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98916 Trammell, Travis, Stuart Madnick, and Allen Moulton. "Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development." 34th International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2013 (ASEM 2013). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-2573 en_US http://www.proceedings.com/21551.html Proceedings of the 34th International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2013 (ASEM 2013) Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM) MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Trammell, Travis Madnick, Stuart E. Moulton, Allen Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title | Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title_full | Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title_fullStr | Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title_full_unstemmed | Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title_short | Using System Dynamics to Analyze the Effect of Funding Fluctuations on Software Development |
| title_sort | using system dynamics to analyze the effect of funding fluctuations on software development |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98916 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-2573 |
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