Analyzing the Role of Mutual Communications in Project Management through Agent-based Simulation

Authors

  • Masao Watabe Tokyo Institute of Technology
  • Takao Terano Tokyo Institute of Technology

Keywords:

Project management, Large scale, Short term, Communication, Agent based simulation

Abstract

Papernumber: 001 (Assigned by Journal editor) Title of Paper : Analyzing the Role of Mutual Communications in Project Management through Agent-Based Simulation Name of Author(s) : Masao Watabe, Takao Terano Address, Email : 8-6, Kasuya-3, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan 157-0063 : mrwatabe@ruby.plala.or.jp Text of abstract This paper proposes an agent-based simulation model to analyze the roles of mutual communications among members of project teams. The objective of the research is to uncover the characteristics communication efficiency in large scale and shorter delivery projects. They have reported that making the delivery period of a project shorter often causes cost-over-run and/or schedule-delay. However, few results have been quantitatively investigated. In order to explore the better communication ways in project management, we have employed agent-based simulation models, in which we implement a manager-leaders group as communication agents based on Axelrod’s tag model. From intensive experiments, we have following major conclusions: 1) The project productivity is proportional with the efficiency of mutual communications among team members. 2) The larger the scale of a project becomes, the less efficient the communication becomes. 3) Making a delivery period of larger projects shorter is difficult comparing with the one of smaller projects. 4) To make the better communication, it will be effective to inform many issues at once. Such tactics is more effective in a large scale and short term project than in a small scale and/or long term project. 5) In any size of projects, it is effective to take enough time for communication. Once a meeting is held in a project, participants should exchange information each other until the end of discussion for all issues they have.

Author Biographies

Masao Watabe, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Student of Graduate School of Tokyo Institute of Technology

Takao Terano, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Professor, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering

Published

2007-07-31

How to Cite

Watabe, M., & Terano, T. (2007). Analyzing the Role of Mutual Communications in Project Management through Agent-based Simulation. Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2007, Tokyo, Japan, 51(2). Retrieved from https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings51st/article/view/590

Issue

Section

Agent-based Social Simulation