Time slice based solution for human resource scheduling problem of multiple IT projects

This paper deals with the human resource scheduling problem of multiple IT projects. According to its specific requirements on time and personnel, the duration of the whole development process can be divided into equal-length time slices. Based on the relations among activities and personnel in a certain time slice, the search tree of personnel scheduling solutions can be constructed. By connecting all the search trees sequentially from all the time slices, the solution tree for the whole problem can be generated and all the solutions can be listed. Then, based on the average of advanced completion rate and the variance of advanced completion rate, the optimal solution can be found. By adding heuristic rules to this algorithm, the searching space can contract rapidly, and the searching efficiency can be enhanced greatly. In view of the particularities of this algorithm, it can be applied to many generalized resource scheduling problems that possess similar conditions with the problem described above. After applying this algorithm to a mock example, some regular patterns emerged, showing the potential that further heuristic rules can be extracted.