StakeNet: Using Social Networks to Analyse the Stakeholders of Large-Scale Software Projects

StakeNet - Analysing the stakeholders of large-scale software projects

Many projects fail because they overlook stakeholders or involve the representatives that lack interest in the project.

The StakeNet project was conceived from a synthesis of ideas from the software engineering and networks research groups at the UCL Department of Computer Science.

StakeNet uses the snowballing technique in social network analysis to identify the network of stakeholders. It prioritises the stakeholders using different social network measures such as betweenness, degree, and load centrality. Comparisons between the different measures reveal potential problems in stakeholder involvement.

To evaluate StakeNet, we have conducted the first empirical study of stakeholders on the access control project at University College London with 30,000 users. We collected 4 datasets from surveying and interviewing 68 stakeholders.

We have also developed a web-based tool, StakeSource, to support the StakeNet method. Using StakeSource, the project manager only needs to enter project details and the contact details of initial stakeholders. StakeSource contacts these stakeholders to ask for recommendations, and analyses their input automatically.