TAMRI: A Tool for Supporting Task Distribution in Global Software Development Projects

The distribution of tasks to sites is one central activity in global software development project planning. Due to the large number of assignment possibilities, tool support seems to be adequate for supporting the evaluation and selection of task assignments. We present TAMRI, a planning tool for identifying task assignments based on multiple criteria and weighted project goals. Its implementation combines a distributed systems approach with Bayesian networks. The tool can be adapted to specific organizational environments by exchanging the underlying Bayesian network. The article presents an overview of task distribution approaches, gives three application scenarios for the tool, and shows the implementation of the tool as well as its application in the scenarios.