Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The sociotechnical teams formation problem: a mathematical optimization approach

  • S.I.: CLAIO 2016
  • Published:
Annals of Operations Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on the sociometric analysis of social networks, we introduce the sociotechnical teams formation problem (STFP). Given a group of individuals with different skill-sets and a social network that captures the mutual affinity between them, the problem consists in finding a set of pairwise disjoint teams, as harmonious as possible, with a minimum specified number of individuals per team per skill. We prove that STFP is \(\mathcal {NP}\)-hard and propose an integer linear programming formulation. We show several classes of facet-inducing inequalities for the corresponding polytope. Computational experiments performed on a set of 120 test instances attest the efficiency of a solution method based on the formulation strengthened by valid inequalities and on a simulated annealing algorithm used to provide good initial feasible solutions.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agustín-Blas, L. E., Salcedo-Sanz, S., Ortiz-García, E. G., Portilla-Figueras, A., Pérez-Bellido, Á. M., & Jiménez-Fernández, S. (2011). Team formation based on group technology: A hybrid grouping genetic algorithm approach. Computers & Operations Research, 38(2), 484–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anagnostopoulos, A., Becchetti, L., Castillo, C., Gionis, A., & Leonardi, S. (2012). Online team formation in social networks. In Proceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web, ACM (pp. 839–848).

  • Babad, E. (2001). On the conception and measurement of popularity: More facts and some straight conclusions. Social Psychology of Education, 5(1), 3–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ballesteros-Pérez, P., González-Cruz, M. C., & Fernández-Diego, M. (2012). Human resource allocation management in multiple projects using sociometric techniques. International Journal of Project Management, 30(8), 901–913.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baykasoglu, A., Dereli, T., & Das, S. (2007). Project team selection using fuzzy optimization approach. Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal, 38(2), 155–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bomze, I. M., Budinich, M., Pardalos, P. M., & Pelillo, M. (1999). The maximum clique problem. In Handbook of combinatorial optimization (pp. 1–74). Berlin: Springer.

  • Campion, M. A., Medsker, G. J., & Higgs, A. C. (1993). Relations between work group characteristics and effectiveness: Implications for designing effective work groups. Personnel Psychology, 46(4), 823–847.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, R. C. (2012). Grouping optimization based on social relationships. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2012, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/170563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, R. C., Li, J. Y., Ma, N. J., & Chang, Y. T. (2013). Application of sociometry and genetic algorithm to selection of class officers. International Information Institute (Tokyo) Information, 16(2), 1233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, S. J., & Lin, L. (2004). Modeling team member characteristics for the formation of a multifunctional team in concurrent engineering. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 51(2), 111–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Oliveira, H. C. B., Martinez, M. R., Salgado, R. M., da Silva, L. E., & Figueiredo, T. F. (2010). Clusterização em redes sociais através do simulated annealing não monotônico. In SBPO - Simpósio Brasileiro Pesquisa Operacional (pp. 1996–2005).

  • Dorn, C., & Dustdar, S. (2010). Composing near-optimal expert teams: A trade-off between skills and connectivity. In R. Meersman, T. Dillon & P. Herrero (Eds.), On the move to meaningful internet systems: OTM (pp. 472–489).

  • Eiben, A. E., & Ruttkay, Z. (1996). Self-adaptivity for constraint satisfaction: Learning penalty functions. In Proceedings of IEEE international conference on evolutionary computation (pp. 258–261).

  • Farhadi, F., Sorkhi, M., Hashemi, S., & Hamzeh, A. (2011). An effective expert team formation in social networks based on skill grading. In 2011 IEEE 11th international conference on data mining workshops (ICDMW) (pp. 366–372).

  • Fitzpatrick, E. L., & Askin, R. G. (2005). Forming effective worker teams with multi-functional skill requirements. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 48(3), 593–608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gajewar, A., & Das Sarma, A. (2012). Multi-skill collaborative teams based on densest subgraphs. In Proceedings of the 2012 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, SIAM (pp. 165–176).

  • Gutiérrez, J. H., Astudillo, C. A., Ballesteros-Pérez, P., Mora-Melià, D., & Candia-Véjar, A. (2016). The multiple team formation problem using sociometry. Computers & Operations Research, 75, 150–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hendriks, M., Voeten, B., & Kroep, L. (1999). Human resource allocation in a multi-project R&D environment: Resource capacity allocation and project portfolio planning in practice. International Journal of Project Management, 17(3), 181–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkpatrick, S. (1984). Optimization by simulated annealing: Quantitative studies. Journal of Statistical Physics, 34(5–6), 975–986.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lappas, T., Liu, K., & Terzi, E. (2009). Finding a team of experts in social networks. In Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 467–476).

  • Li, C. T., & Shan, M. K. (2010). Team formation for generalized tasks in expertise social networks. In IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom) (pp. 9–16).

  • Li, C. T., Shan, M. K., & Lin, S. D. (2015). On team formation with expertise query in collaborative social networks. Knowledge and Information Systems, 42(2), 441–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maurer, I. (2010). How to build trust in inter-organizational projects: The impact of project staffing and project rewards on the formation of trust, knowledge acquisition and product innovation. International Journal of Project Management, 28(7), 629–637.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moreno, J. L. (1941). Foundations of sociometry: An introduction. Sociometry, 4(1), 15–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shi, Z., & Hao, F. (2013). A strategy of multi-criteria decision-making task ranking in social-networks. The Journal of Supercomputing, 66(1), 556–571.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorkhi, M., Alvari, H., Hashemi, S., & Hamzeh, A. (2012). A game-theoretic framework to identify top-k teams in social networks. In KDIR (pp. 252–257).

  • Teixeira, L. O., & Huzita, E. H. M. (2014). Disen-alocahr: A multi-agent mechanism for human resources allocation in a distributed software development environment. In S. Omatu, H. Bersini, J. M. Corchado, S. Rodríguez, P. Pawlewski & E. Bucciarelli (Eds.), 11th international conference on distributed computing and artificial intelligence (Vol. 290, pp. 227–234).

  • Trist, E. (1981). The evolution of socio-technical systems. Occasional Paper No. 2.

  • Wi, H., Oh, S., Mun, J., & Jung, M. (2012). A team formation model based on knowledge and collaboration. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 1(40), 44–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolsey, L. A., & Nemhauser, G. L. (1999). Integer and combinatorial optimization. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zakarian, A., & Kusiak, A. (1999). Forming teams: An analytical approach. IIE Transactions, 31(1), 85–97.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Statistics and Applied Mathematics Department, Federal University of Ceará, Campus do Pici, BL 910, Fortaleza, Ceará, CEP 60.440-900, Brazil

    Manoel Campêlo

  2. Computer Science Department, Federal University of Ceará, Campus do Pici, BL 910, Fortaleza, Ceará, CEP 60.440-900, Brazil

    Tatiane Figueiredo

  3. Mathematics Department, Federal University of Ceará, Campus do Pici, BL 914, Fortaleza, Ceará, CEP 60.440-900, Brazil

    Ana Silva

Authors
  1. Manoel Campêlo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tatiane Figueiredo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ana Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manoel Campêlo.

Additional information

Partially supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnolgico - CNPq, Brasil (443747/2014-8, 305264/2016-8), and CAPES/STIC-AmSud.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Campêlo, M., Figueiredo, T. & Silva, A. The sociotechnical teams formation problem: a mathematical optimization approach. Ann Oper Res 286, 201–216 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2759-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2759-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation