A Modular Model for Predicting the Impact of Process Improvements on Software Development Cycle Time

Reducing software development cycle time can be advantageous to software development organizations. Software organizations are investing time and money in process improvements aimed at reducing their cycle time. Unfortunately, the impact of process improvements on the cycle time of complex software processes is not well understood. The objective of the research being proposed is to give decision makers a model that will predict the impact a set of process improvements will have on their software development cycle time. The outcome of the research will be a modular system dynamics model of the software development environment that allows decision makers to gain insight and perform controlled experiments to answer "What if?" type questions, such as, "What kind of cycle time reduction can I expect to see if I implement inspections?" or "How much time should I spend on inspections?" This research proposal covers necessary background information, discusses existing work on this topic, describes the proposed research, and describes the approach that will be used to achieve the research objectives of this proposal.