Automatically Prioritizing Tasks in Software Development

Abstract

Context: Within the domain of managing software development teams, effective task prioritization is a critical responsibility that should not be underestimated, particularly for larger organizations with significant backlogs. Current approaches primarily rely on predicting task priority without considering information about other tasks, potentially resulting in inaccurate priority predictions.Objective: This paper presents the benefits of considering the entire backlog when prioritizing tasks.Method: We employ an iterative approach using particle swarm optimization to optimize a linear model with various preprocessing methods to determine the optimal model for task prioritization within a backlog. Results:The findings of our study demonstrate the usefulness of constructing a task prioritization model based on complete information from the backlog. Conclusion:The method proposed in our study can serve as a valuable resource for future researchers and can also facilitate the development of new tools to aid IT management teams.