Organization Design Optimization Using Genetic Programming

This paper describes how we use Genetic Programming (GP) techniques to help project managers find near optimal designs for their project organizations. Our GP model is a postprocessor optimizer for the Virtual Design Team (VDT), a project organization design simulator also developed at Stanford. Decision making policy and individual/sub-team properties are varied by GP, and the effect on quality and duration of the project is compared via a fitness function. The solutions found by GP compare favorably with the best human generated designs.