Risk Analysis On Behavior For Software Projects Based On Game Theory

Abstract

Conflict analysis is a model of the game theory. This paper aims at analyzing the relationship among software projects actors in the game by using conflict analysis models to identify the risk factors. The behaviors of the subjects including software developers, agents, users and other stakeholders of software projects are analyzed from the perspective of stakeholders to find out the potential risks in it. Based on the asymmetric information theory and game theory, the results showed that the developers will damage the interests in hiding technical information of agents and users under the asymmetric information in a balanced outcome of the game. Therefore, the agents need to look for software professionals to assess the qualifications of the project and the users need to take pre-agreement to avoid such problems. Introduction With the continuous promotion of information construction, more and more software projects are applied in our life. Therefore, in order to reduce the risk of software project, improving the successful rate of software projects to strengthen the risk management of software project has important significance. Risk management is very important in the process of software project development. If reasonable or not, it will directly affect the success or failure of the software project. Currently, discussions on the issue are in full swing in the theorists. Identifying the risk factors has two main focus areas. First, defining the risk from the type of resource, such as personnel, finance, technology, time, information, and knowledge. Foreign scholars Cristina (2012) discussed the impact of software project risk caused by the technology and a new system and provided the decision support for the software project risk managers[1]. Xie Gang (2006) applied the life-cycle theory to the problems of software project bidding risk aversion from the perspective of time to tender for risk identification and proposed suggestions and countermeasures to avoid the risk of bidding[2]. Second, analyzing the risk factors from the project management process, such as requirements analysis, schedule, quality, cost and other perspectives. Pan Meisen (2007) established a software project risk assessment model about the analysis of needs and predicted the software project risk level from the perspective of requirements analysis[3]. It is worth noting that the existing articles are often more concerned about the objective risk factors and focus on the point of management. However, the root of project risks is generated by the project actors which dominates the trend of project development. The research on software project risk is still in its infancy. Currently, Domestic scholars have tried to apply the theory of actors risk to the field of engineering project risk. Ren Yulong (2004) established an incentive information model based on the theory of asymmetric information and analyzed the problems of commissioned agency relationship [4]. He Xudong (2012) emphasized the importance of the project participants and believed that the success of the project depended on the project stakeholders subjectivity, which is very significant in the field of engineering[5]. This paper attempts to take advantage of conflict analysis model to analyze the risk of 3rd International Conference on Management, Education, Information and Control (MEICI 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1607 software projects involved in stakeholders' decision-making based on the asymmetric information. By extracting the risk caused by the stakeholders' behaviors of software projects provides the better solutions for the stakeholders in the software projects. The game analysis model of software project actors This paper applies the conflict analysis model which belongs to game theory to predict the result of the conflict situation and analyze the process[6]. Conflict analysis, as an analytic method , can solve many problems that are difficult to express in the quantitative way and maximizes the use of information[7]. The basic model of conflict analysis can be represented as equation(1). C = {N,E,P,UI} (1) Among them: N:The Participants in the conflict, N ={1,2„„n}; E:All possible situations set in the current situation. The feasible situation is represented by a vector 0-1. It will give a vector code for each situation; P:the preference ordering set that participants focused on each feasible situation; UI:a unilateral improved conflict set of each participant according to the preference ordering. This paper studies the conflict among the software developers, software agents and users. It does not involve other stakeholders. Assumptions as follows: 1) The model of conflict analysis is used in project setting stage. 2) Business negotiations between software project participants including software developers, software agents and potential users have begun. There is a strong willingness to cooperate for the participants. 3) This paper chooses a bundled software or plug-ins as example. 4) Players’ strategy will continue to change in the direction of their most advantageous choice. Software developers have intangible technical information. However, the software agents and users don’t obtain the technical information of software project. Modeling of software project actors and analysis According to the actual situation of software project setting stage, the players, feasible solutions, viable situation and stabilize the situation of this model are showed as follows: The analysis of feasible situation for the players. In the course of the conflict, each player can choose their own strategies based on selection scheme after the other participants [8]. The set every participant selected constructs an outcome. Theoretically, there are 25=32 kinds of conflicts situation. But we should exclude the situation that does not meet the actual situation. The situation finally gets 13 feasible situations. As is shown in Table 1: