Project Scheduling Conflict Identification and Resolution Using Genetic Algorithms

Abstract

Project management is one very critical task of development activity. Project management is traditionally defined as the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing activities and resources for successful execution and completion of project goals and objectives. In this respect, project management holds a key position in satisfactory completion of projects. Project management for software holds the same importance in software development. That is the reason that we have a complete knowledge domain we know as software project management (SPM). Software project management aims to achieve all the project goals and objectives while working within the constraints posed by project environment and stakeholders. These constraints include (but not limited to) time, scope, resources, resource allocation and optimization etc. While managing software projects, it is natural to be confronted with various conflicts of different natures. A good project management activity is one which can effectively foresee these conflicts and resolve them in an optimal fashion. In this paper, a genetic algorithm based technique for conflict identification and resolution for project activities has been proposed. The effectiveness and utility of such a technique has also been discussed in this paper.