Contributor's Performance, Participation Intentions, Its Influencers and Project Performance

Abstract

Software project performance largely depends on the software development team. Studies have shown that interest and activity levels of contributors at any time significantly affect project success measures. This dissertation provides suggestions to enhance contributors' performance and participation intentions to help improve project performance. To do so, we mine historical data in software repositories from a two-pronged approach: 1) To assess contributors' performance to identify strengths and areas of improvement. 2) To measure the influence of factors on contributors' participation and performance, and provide suggestions that help advance contributor's engagement. The methodology used in this study leverage empirical techniques, both quantitative and qualitative, to conduct the analysis. We believe that the insights presented here will help contributors improve their performance. Also, we expect managers and business analysts to benefit from the suggestions to revise factors that negatively influence contributors' engagement and hence improve project performance.