Verbal Decision Analysis Applied to the Prioritization of Influencing Factors in Distributed Software Development

A project manager of distributed software development faces many challenges. Some of them relate to task allocation among remote teams. To assign a task to team, the project manager takes into account several factors such as project manager maturity and team availability. Most of the time, the manager takes the decision subjectively. The verbal decision analysis is an approach to solve problems through multi-criteria qualitative analysis, i.e., it considers the analysis of subjective criteria. This paper describes the application of verbal decision analysis method ZAPROS III-i to prioritize the factors that the project managers should take into account when allocating tasks in projects of distributed software development.