A Study of Staff Turnover, Acquisition, and Assimiliation and Their Impact on Software Development Cost and Schedule.

Author List: Abdel-Hamid, Tarek K.;
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1989, Volume 6, Issue 1, Page 21-40.
In this article we investigate how staff turnover, acquisition, and assimilation rates affect software development cost and schedule. A system dynamics model of the software development process is employed as our experimentation vehicle. In addition to permitting less costly and less time-consuming experimentation, simulation-type models can provide useful insights into the causes behind the different behavior patterns observed. Our results indicate that staff turnover, acquisition, and assimilation rates can increase a project's cost and duration, by as much as 40 to 60 percent. This suggests that the three staffing variables are indeed critical for the successful development of software systems, as well as for the accurate estimation of software development cost and schedule.
Keywords: and software development cost and schedule.; human resource management; project staffing; Software development; software project management
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List of Topics

#135 0.237 project projects development management isd results process team developed managers teams software stakeholders successful complex develop contingencies problems greater planning
#151 0.157 costs cost switching reduce transaction increase benefits time economic production transactions savings reduction impact services reduced affect expected optimal associated
#261 0.130 software development maintenance case productivity application tools systems function tool engineering projects effort code developed applications analysis estimation methodology methods
#232 0.121 software development product functionality period upgrade sampling examines extent suggests factors considered useful uncertainty previous called complementarities greater cost present
#109 0.106 career human professionals job turnover orientations careers capital study resource personnel advancement configurations employees mobility jobs management individuals pay non-it
#213 0.091 assimilation beliefs belief confirmation aggregation initial investigate observed robust particular comparative circumstances aggregated tendency factors examine stages uncertainty instead confidence