On the information exchange model of software development - software project management to explore the exchange of information

Abstract: Software development is the creation of a high degree of knowledge-intensive activities, exchange of Information in the process played an important role. Information exchange model on the efficiency of software development, project management and development tools have a profound impact on the development of evolution. proposed mode of the three characteristics of the exchange of Information and argument on the basis of shared natural wear and tear of the strong Information-sharing model for software development role and impact of the positive.

Paper Keywords: software project management, Information exchange and sharing of general information exchange model library

1 Introduction
Sackman 1970 12 programmer on two different test procedures and found that program length between 6:1, 8:1 difference in running time, programming time, a difference of 9:1, a difference of coding time program 18:1, program debugging, debugging time, a difference of 28:1. in the actual development, software development gap between members is very common. this common practice is to use internal communications, such as staff training, technical meeting , members discussed other ways to reduce the gap between the purpose of team members.

Software development is a team with specific objectives of cooperation activities, while the team is only through effective communication in order to play their collective strength. In the development of common information exchange activities, and plays a very important role. It coordinates the conduct of members, so that in parallel, and team behavior and its effects are closely related. So, how to effectively manage and control information exchange becomes very important. However, the exchange of information is often difficult to control and manage: If there is no good governance, development teams can easily fall into inefficient work , information is confusing situation, and lead to various negative effects - disruption of work, ideas interrupt, time consumption. survey shows 40 hours a week of development engineers, the actual development averages only 16 to 18 hours, the other very much time on the exchanges between personnel. Instead, a team of information exchange is simple, smooth, low loss, their work is often coordinated, orderly activities. information exchange on software development have a profound impact.

Contemporary software project management theory seems to be the exchange of information on the development team questions the lack of sufficient attention, most of the emphasis in this regard the role of teamwork. In fact, there are many communication mode internal pattern, analysis of these factors will help the software project management improvement, conducive to the development of useful software industry in China.

2 General Information exchange and pattern classification
In a narrow sense, information exchange is limited to people in language, thought the direct exchange, in the broadest sense, including all the information you send, receive, transfer, and the process of interaction (such as the extension, expansion, shrinking, distortion, Lenovo, etc.). in software development, all to obtain information from their own activities outside the initiative belongs to the scope of information exchange, communication object is not necessarily the people, can be a machine, the experience knowledge base, software systems (such as DSS), etc. but the communication must be the main man. generalized information exchange in the software development process is very common, all tasks in the context specific information (knowledge, task, planning, standardization, management directives, etc.) by the various members have completed the next.

3 Characteristics and conditions for information exchange model
According to the characteristics of the exchange of information, can be divided into three clear pattern characteristics.


3.1 Strong information exchange model
Strong information exchange model is characterized by exchanges are very frequent, not only in the project members (including project managers), with individual members and networks in question (such as a member group of outside experts and projects, exchange of individuals), information performance of face to face communication or interpersonal communication, lack of tool support, there is a big loss, although the active exchange of information but is disorganized chaos, too much greatly reduced AC losses the efficiency of the team, as management bottleneck.


Figure 1:
1. Nx: team member
2. M: the project manager or project team leader
3. P: on the one charge
4. C: Internal Review Panel
5. And the direction of the arrow: the direction of information transmission line and (below)
Figure 1 shows a typical development team's strong information exchange model. It can be seen, the control channel M-P or P-c relative concentration of the exchange of information and simple, but the project team is very frequent internal communication, communication frequency ( complexity) is n (two-way exchange of consideration, n the number of members for the project.) core of the implementation of the project to develop software distributed directly to each individual project team members who, in the strong mode of information exchange, the exchange frequency lead to the development of high efficiency of the entire group is low. At the same time busy with the project manager all aspects of M as a result of the exchange of a lack of management within the group. So this is a great information exchange model the internal friction. large-scale projects are often easy to fall into this state, which Why large-scale projects also proved more effective management depends on the facts.

3.2 Weak information exchange model
This mode is very limited exchange of information, there is only the project manager and the communication between programmers, programmers, almost no exchange of information between, and no support outside the project team, without use of tools to facilitate the exchange. Due to lack of communication, their own way inefficient. The lack of project management and organization of information exchange between members of the obstacles, there is no internal review panels strict supervision on the progress of the project, shown in Figure 2.

Under this situation has been very little communication, there are still losses, such losses can not be avoided is the natural wear and tear.

3.3 Strong natural exchange of information loss model
Information exchange patterns of the two inherent problems, but they have their own strengths: strong unhindered exchange of information, weak information exchange loss of close to natural wear and tear. If the communication mode also has two characteristics, the model is the natural Strong information exchange losses. The mode of information exchange both strong advantages, but also overcome the loss of major deficiencies: the information channel between the individual members are very clear, on the other hand each individual subject from other members within the team interference significantly reduced.


However, this model is needed to form the conditions, there are a lot of well-managed, easy access to the shared experience of the full knowledge that the shared library in Figure 3, is one of the necessary conditions. Shared library can not make a lot of information through traditional exchange access, to improve the speed of information transmission, reducing the direct communication between people frequency.

Shared library is a key role here refers to all information services helps to provide effective information collection, but should be excluded from the team itself, or return to the status of strong information model. Internal database that can provide expert advice , decision support systems, Internet resources, etc., can be effectively shared libraries. Its characteristics are shared and can provide multi-channel services.

Links to Research Papers Download http://www.hi138.com the other hand, the project team members asked to be excluded from personal, communication channel flow, there is no any communication, direct communication is necessary every time the exchange - Share library can not provide this information only to solve by direct communication, information exchange model which is a strong condition, but also the natural wear and tear of a strong information-sharing mode conditions.


4 natural wear and tear of the strong exchange of information revelation model of software development
Important properties of information exchange model to remind us: software development for information exchange on how to avoid confusion? How to manage the information exchange model a good team? How to reduce the loss of the exchange of information? Three characteristics of information exchange model provides a useful inspiration for this .

4.1 The exchange of information from the general trend of software development point of view
Exchange of information only from the narrow point of view, software development, information exchange and inconspicuous. In order to reach a constructive conclusion, we have a broad perspective of information exchange problems. Based on this, we believe that the following four points are the software industry in accordance with the law of development of information exchange model to prove it:
* Use of tools to facilitate the exchange of
Stand-alone environment, the computer network to extend to the network environment, greatly expanding the ways and speed of information dissemination, local area network has become an indispensable environment for all units, especially the Internet has become a matter of fact the greatest source of information. Distributed database system, e-mail system, file transfer protocol, real-time communication tools, search engines are web-based information exchange tool. These tools enable people to obtain the information needed greater capacity.

Powerful integrated environment: it is generally considered the product of people cope with the software crisis, but the exchange of information is a software development point of view of this inevitable trend of development tools. It instead of the programmers have done a lot of access to information, knowledge and outputs, information coordination exchange of work, in order to reduce the frequency of communication played a role of great help. can be expected to have a more integrated development environment astonishing development, but gradually other software and will still work to be done manually in its scope, such as configuration management, version control, joint development of a more friendly environment for automated testing, intelligent aids, automated document management technologies.

* Construction of a larger unit of information (information size)
Software consists of modules or objects, and modules for more information and object by the unit (including the mathematical formula, metadata, etc.). More information unit can be integrated with specific functions for the larger unit of information, making use of information do not consider the more independent of the details and objectives, thereby increasing the strength of the exchange of information. This is the information unit of the expansion of software reuse ideas. an early primitive software development is basically a fully customized (such as a specific compilation function statement), followed by the gradual emergence of a direct call to a variety of kits, the case of system function, until a more formal reuse: object-oriented, component of the proposed techniques and application of software reuse in the software industry has done great efforts, the emergence of different technologies and standards are defined in OMG's CORBA and Microsoft DCOM, and SUN's Java platform. multiplexed construct larger information units, in order to reduce the cost of information exchange have created favorable conditions.

Support for information sharing
Driver software industry is an important idea is sharing, sharing fully in the information explosion era reflects its advantages. Not sharing the information is only an island more seriously affect the flow of information and communication. The early sharing of development tools, lack of support With the rapid expansion of software requirements, there has been so-called software crisis. to be the software crisis, there has been support for the full share of the development platform, the prevalence of these tools of visualization, networking, and intelligent, automated trend for sharing provided technical support, and sharing is to break the fundamental purpose of communication barriers for the realization of the strong exchange of information without loss of model created the conditions.

* Use of intelligent
Intelligence has been a hot topic in the software industry, and will play an increasing role. Software development to minimize the overhead of communication is the key to reducing human conscious participation. Machine intelligence can replace face to face communication, education training, it is not time and space constraints, can provide immediate, you can work in parallel to demand, thus greatly reducing the losses caused by direct interaction. such as the intelligent search engine can provide better search services.

It can draw a conclusion: the pursuit of "AC loss reduction" is the software industry is an inherent tendency to reduce the AC losses is an important condition for improving efficiency.

4.2 to maintain an active exchange of information. Reduce losses
Software development activities in the prevalence of asymmetric information. A result of information asymmetry is a member of the development speed can not be the same question, only the full exchange can reduce information asymmetry, in order to accelerate the flow and dissemination of knowledge. But in fact, Since the exchange of information loss problem, do not allow this kind of exchange unlimited development, which requires management control and tools, to avoid direct communication is not necessary occur, so that the loss of strong exchange of information down to the level of natural attrition to achieve the natural Strong information exchange loss model.

4.3 Enhanced tool. To improve sharing
Full sharing of information is a condition of strong exchange of information, but not easy to do, it needs the support tools, because tool support to avoid a direct interaction between people. Shared ideas in guiding the development of the entire software industry The fundamental reason is that the shared library to reduce the cost of information exchange, the exchange of information into the model closer to natural wear and tear of the strong information exchange model. The cost itself is inevitable, but the use of shared libraries with the help of machine intelligence and software reduce this overhead. in the foreseeable future the software industry must continue to enhance the tool, share, improve intelligence.

5 Conclusion
The nature of information exchange model to remind project managers: information exchange model a profound impact on every aspect of the project, managers must take strong measures to achieve a natural loss of information exchange model, to avoid the exchange of information into a simple model of strong or weak information exchange patterns of errors.

On the other hand, the pattern of exchange of information on the software development environment, a challenge is how to provide better tool support, reduce unnecessary person, one person's direct communication, exchange of information on how to provide comprehensive support to reduce the exchange of information overhead.

Strong information exchange natural wear and tear in software project management model will have wide implications. Technological progress will accelerate this process. Sophisticated data analysis, database technology applied to information exchange tools to go, and seamless integration with the development environment, will greatly enhance the speed of access to knowledge and to improve the availability of such knowledge, on the other hand, combined with intelligence information-sharing tools to organize your collection of useful information, data mining technology will be the general "information inquiry" into "Knowledge Query "The combination of technology and shared libraries will greatly reduce the loss of human information exchange, contribute to information exchange model into natural wear and tear of the strong information exchange model, and thus improve software productivity. reposted elsewhere in the Research Papers Download http:/ / www.hi138.com