Where or for what could genetic algorithms be used in the context of project management?

Question

Where or for what could genetic algorithms (GA) be used in the context of project management (PM)? I thought about task dispatching, but I'm looking for other potential uses of GAs in the context of PM.

Answer 1

GA is well suited to optimize a non-linear fitness function with a lot of variables. Each vector that is a possible solution is evaluated with the fitness function that we want to optimize.

So, GA is well suited to optimize schedules for a lot of people, optimizing resources, etc.

Your mission is to define all variables that you can move-tune and that affect your objectives, and assign an estimated weight on every variable.

For example, create a total project cost as the fitness function, to minimize. One variable will be the number of programmers, multiplied by cost and total months. If you don't want delays over 3 months, add a correction factor: +10000*max(0, months-3), penalizing the fitness function's results where months > 3, etc.

When you apply your GA algorithm to the fitness function, you will find some minimum for your function, if any exists, because the solution may not exist if you added too many constraints.

Answer 2

Project Management is most like model to game theory. You can find a article here, as a cooperative game, and apply opportunity cost to your budget, only you need to apply your own rules of the game.