Skip navigation
The Australian National University

Using Social Networks to Identify and Prioritise Software Project Stakeholders

Soo Ling Lim (University College, London)

COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR

DATE: 2010-10-14
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
CONTACT: JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address.

ABSTRACT:
Many software projects fail because they overlook stakeholders or involve the wrong representatives of significant groups. Unfortunately, existing methods in stakeholder analysis are likely to omit stakeholders, and consider all stakeholders as equally influential.

To address the problems, we have developed StakeNet, a method that uses social networks to identify and prioritise stakeholders. StakeNet identifies an initial set of stakeholders and asks them to recommend other stakeholders, builds a social network whose nodes are stakeholders and links are recommendations, and prioritises the stakeholders using a variety of social network algorithms.

To evaluate StakeNet, we apply it to a large software project to develop an access control system for 30,000 users. Results show that StakeNet identifies a highly complete list of stakeholders, and prioritises the stakeholders accurately.

We have also developed StakeSource, a software tool that automates the manual processes in StakeNet (_www.stakesource.co.uk _). StakeSource is now used in major software projects in UK and Japan.

This talk describes the StakeNet method and its evaluation, and demonstrates the StakeSource tool.


BIO:
Soo Ling is a Research Associate at the Department of Computer Science, University College London. Her research investigates the use of social networks and collaborative filtering techniques in requirements engineering.

Updated:  5 October 2010 / Responsible Officer:  JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address. / Page Contact:  JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address.