Statistical methods for automated generation of service engagement staffing plans

Abstract

In order to successfully deliver a labor-based professional service, the right people with the right skills must be available to deliver the service when it is needed. Meeting this objective requires a systematic, repeatable approach for determining the staffing requirements that enable informed staffing management decisions. We present a methodology developed for the Global Business Services (GBS) organization of IBM to enable automated generation of staffing plans involving specific job roles, skill sets, and employee experience levels. The staffing plan generation is based on key characteristics of the expected project as well as selection of a project type from a project taxonomy that maps to staffing requirements. The taxonomy is developed using statistical clustering techniques applied to labor records from a large number of historical GBS projects. We describe the steps necessary to process the labor records so that they are in a form suitable for analysis, as well as the clustering methods used for analysis, and the algorithm developed to dynamically generate a staffing plan based on a selected group. We also present results of applying the clustering and staffing plan generation methodologies to a variety of GBS projects. © 2007 IBM.