Measuring and tracking distributed software development projects

Visualizing a distributed software development project is difficult. We have been experimenting with creating Intelligent Agent (IA) tools to assist project administrators in managing and controlling large distributed software development projects. A PAMPA 2 Knowledge Base is created by gathering information from project CASE tools supplied by any vendor. While the IA tools are independent of a specific vendor's CASE tools, we have built a prototype based on Rational Corporation and Microsoft Corporation tools. A number of IAs have been developed to work with the PAMPA 2 Knowledge Base. An IA is described that tracks cost driver dominators to determine if a project may fail and tells managers how to modify project plans to reduce probability of project failure. An Internet based prototype of the PAMPA Knowledge Base and associated IAs has been developed.