As the software industry is growing rapidly, the core factor is its technical human resources. Despite of the importance of the technical human resources in software industry, there are few work. Under this background, this dissertation is to aim at analysis of the skill factors of the technical human resources and performance.
Specially, the main objectives as follows: 1) What are the skill factors of software developer. 2) What skill factors of the software developer are more important for improving his performance under the different task in the software development life cycle and the different product type in the software industry. 3) What activities in software development process are more effective under a given skill level of project team members.
Two research models for an analysis are proposed. One is to analyze the skill factors of software developer and performance. The other is to analyze the interaction effects of the activities in the software development process and the skill factors of project team members.
The skill factors include the project management skill and the communication skill as the organizational skill, and the problem solving skill, the technology management skill, the technical experience and the reuse skill as the technical skill. The activities include the formal project planning, the formal control, the use of methodology, the coordination for problem solving and the user involvement.
The results of the first research model are as follows:
1) The more the developer works at the upper level in the software development process, the more the organizational skill factors are represented importantly for improving the performance.
2) The project management skill and the problem solving skill are represented importantly for all the developers regardless of the task characteristics.
3) The contribution of skill factors for the performance is represented differently according to the software product type. Specially, The technology management skill is more important factor on the system software. The project management skill, the problem solving skill and the reuse skill are more important on the customized software. The problem solving skill and the communication skill are more important on the packaged software.
The results of the second research model are as follows:
1) When the software developers' skill levels are high, the project performance is represented highly at the use of methodology, the coordination and the user involvement activity.
2) In the formal planning, the use of methodology and the coordination activities, the interaction effects of the skill factors and the activity are represented significantly. In particular, the communication skill is more effective to the project performance at the use of methodology and the coordination.
We have some implications through the research results. First, the education programs for improvement of the software developer's organizational skill should be developed at industry level as well as the formal educational institutes. Second, the development strategy of the technical human resources in the software firm should be developed with taking consideration into the needs of the different skill factors according to the task characteristics and the product type.
