The impact of staff turnover on software projects: the importance of understanding what makes software practitioners tick

Authors:
Tracy Hall;Sarah Beecham;June Verner;David Wilson
Affiliations:
Brunel University, Middlesex, United Kingdom;University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom;National ICT Australia, Sydney, Australia;University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on Computer personnel doctoral consortium and research
Year:
2008

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Abstract

In this paper we investigate the impact of staff turnover on software projects. In particular we investigate whether high staff turnover damages project success. We analyse data from an empirical study of 89 software practitioners to show that projects with high staff turnover are less successful. Furthermore our empirical data suggests a relationship between high staff turnover on projects and low staff motivation levels. We discuss factors which have been previously found to improve motivation levels and conclude that improving motivation levels can reduce staff turnover, which in turn increases project success.