A simulation-based approach for fine-grained project plan analysis

Making plans are the integral part to control projects. However, in most case, due to unforeseen changes in software process, it is hard to attain both the complete and the fine-grained information of plan. In this paper we present a simulation based approach to support management planning in forecasting not only at project level but at the task level as well. Instead of assuming many factors to be static (including productivity), we treat them dynamically. In comparison to existing method, our approach gives two benefits: (i) Central analysis of human resource, which can really reveal the unforeseen changes, (ii) A fine-grained simulation to support, select and customize project plans in context to a specific project. Finally, by mean of an example from our prototype system we demonstrate that how our approach is conducive to fine-grained project plan analysis.