DynaMan: a tool to improve software process management through dynamic simulation

This paper deals with the use of system dynamics as an innovative and effective technique to model software processes. In particular, we describe how system dynamics have been used to study the quantitative aspects of software processes and discuss the improvement to software development management deriving from the adoption of this technique. In order to effectively use system dynamics based models, however, a tool is necessary to support their creation, customization, maintenance and simulation. In this paper we introduce DynaMan, a tool designed to accomplish these goals; in particular we describe the first version of the tool and the improvement that we are currently carrying on at CEFRIEL.