Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Improving Software Development Process through Economic Mechanism Design

  • Conference paper
Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (EuroSPI 2010)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 99))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We introduce the novel concept of applying economic mechanism design to software development process, and aim to find ways to adjust the incentives and disincentives of the software organization to align them with the motivations of the participants in order to maximize the delivered value of a software project. We envision a set of principles to design processes that allow people to be self motivated but constantly working toward project goals. The resulting economic mechanism will rely on game theoretic principles (i.e. Stackelberg games) for leveraging the incentives, goals and motivation of the participants in the service of project and organizational goals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. O’Connor, R.V.: Human aspects of information technology development. International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management 8(1) (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  2. ISO/IEC: Amendment to ISO/IEC 12207-2008 - Systems and software engineering Software life cycle processes (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pressman, R.S., Ince, D.: Software engineering. McGraw-Hill, New York (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Singh, R.: International Standard ISO/IEC 12207 software life cycle processes. Software Process Improvement and Practice 2, 35–50 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Conradi, R.: Software process improvement: results and experience from the field. Springer, New York (2006)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Persse, J.R.: Process Improvement Essentials. O’Reilly Media, Inc., Sebastopol (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Acuna, S.T., Juristo, N., Moreno, A.M., Mon, A.: A Software Process Model Handbook for Incorporating People’s Capabilities. Springer, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Royce, W.: Managing the development of large software systems. In: Proceedings of IEEE Wescon, vol. 26 (1970)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Basili, V.R., Turner, A.J.: Iterative enhancement: A practical technique for software development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 4, 390–396 (1975)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Boehm, B.: A spiral model of software development and enhancement. Computer 21, 61–72 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Madachy, R.J.: Software Process Dynamics. Wiley-IEEE Press, Chichester (2008)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  12. Levy, L.S.: Taming the tiger: software engineering and software economics. Springer, New York (1987)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Biffl, S., Boehm, B., Erdogmus, H.: Value-based software engineering. Springer, New York (2006)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. Dittrich, Y., Floyd, C., Klischewski, R.: Social thinking-software practice. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Yu, E.: Social Modeling and i*. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Dixit, A.K., Skeath, S.: Games of Strategy. W. W. Norton & Company (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Osborne, M.J., Rubinstein, A.: A course in game theory. MIT Press, Cambridge (1994)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Binmore, K.G.: Playing for real. Oxford University Press, US (2007)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Boehm, B., Ross, R.: Theory-W software project management principles and examples. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 15, 902–916 (1989)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Lagesse, B.: A Game-Theoretical model for task assignment in project management. In: 2006 IEEE International Conference on Management of Innovation and Technology, Singapore, pp. 678–680 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Grechanik, M., Perry, D.E.: Analyzing software development as a noncooperative game. In: IEE Seminar Digests, vol. 29 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Cockburn, A.: Agile software development: the cooperative game. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Baskerville, R.L., Levine, L., Ramesh, B., Pries-Heje, J.: The high speed balancing game: How software companies cope with internet speed. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 16, 11–54 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Sullivan, K., Chalasani, P.: Software design decisions as real options (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Vajja, K.K., TV, P.: Quality attribute game: a game theory based techniquefor software architecture design. In: Proceeding of the 2nd Annual Conference on India Software Engineering Conference, Pune, India, pp. 133–134. ACM, New York (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Sazawal, V., Sudan, N.: Modeling Software Evolution with Game Theory. Trustworthy Software Development Processes, 354–365

    Google Scholar 

  27. Hazzan, O., Dubinsky, Y.: Social perspective of software development methods: The case of the prisoner dilemma and extreme programming. In: Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering, pp. 74–81. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Feijs, L.: Prisoner dilemma in software testing. Computer Science Reports 1, 65–80 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Oza, N.: Game theory perspectives on client: vendor relationships in offshore software outsourcing, 54 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Hurwicz, L., Reiter, S.: Designing economic mechanisms. Cambridge Univ. Pr., Cambridge (2006)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  31. Myerson, R.B.: Perspectives on mechanism design in economic theory. American Economic Review 98, 586–603 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Hayek, F.A.V.: The use of knowledge in society. American Economic Review 35, 519–530 (1945)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Harsanyi, J.C.: Games with incomplete information played by ”Bayesian” players, I-III: part i. The Basic Model & Management Science 50, 1804–1817 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Mitleton-Kelly, E.: Complex systems and evolutionary perspectives on organisations. Emerald Group Publishing (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Ryan, S., O’Connor, R.V.: Development of a team measure for tacit knowledge in software development teams. Journal of Systems and Software 82, 229–240 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Beecham, S., Baddoo, N., Hall, T., Robinson, H., Sharp, H.: Motivation in software engineering: A systematic literature review. Information and Software Technology 50, 860–878 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Ziv, H., Richardson, D., Klosch, R.: The uncertainty principle in software engineering. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE’97 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Barki, H., Hartwick, J.: Interpersonal conflict and its management in information system development. MIS Quarterly, 195–228 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Zhang, X., Dhaliwal, J.S., Gillenson, M.L., Moeller, G.: Sources of conflict between developers and testers in software development. In: AMCIS 2008 Proceedings, p. 313 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Stackelberg, H.V., Peacock, A.T.: The theory of the market economy. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1952)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Bloem, M., Alpcan, T., Basar, T.: A stackelberg game for power control and channel allocation in cognitive radio networks. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools, Nantes, France, pp. 1–9 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Pita, J., Jain, M., Ordez, F., Tambe, M., Kraus, S., Magori-Cohen, R.: Effective solutions for real-world stackelberg games: when agents must deal with human uncertainties. In: Proceedings of The 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Budapest, Hungary, vol. 1, pp. 369–376 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Ichiishi, T., Yamazaki, A.: Cooperative Extensions of the Bayesian Game. World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore (2006)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  44. Rasch, R.H., Tosi, H.L.: Factors affecting software developers’ performance: An integrated approach. MIS Quarterly 16, 395–413 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lero Graduate School in Software Engineering, Dublin City University, Ireland

    Murat Yilmaz

  2. Dublin City University, Ireland

    Rory V. O’Connor

  3. Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre,  

    Rory V. O’Connor

  4. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

    John Collins

Authors
  1. Murat Yilmaz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rory V. O’Connor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. John Collins
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Grenoble Institute of Technology, Grenoble, France

    Andreas Riel  & Serge Tichkiewitch  & 

  2. Lero, The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre and School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Rory O’Connor

  3. ISCN, Graz, Austria and ISCN, Bray, Co., Wicklow, Ireland

    Richard Messnarz

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Yilmaz, M., O’Connor, R.V., Collins, J. (2010). Improving Software Development Process through Economic Mechanism Design. In: Riel, A., O’Connor, R., Tichkiewitch, S., Messnarz, R. (eds) Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2010. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 99. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15666-3_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15666-3_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15665-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15666-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation