Artificial Intelligence Methods to Support People Management In
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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en IIIAIIIA Institut d’Investigació en Intel·ligència Artificial Artificial intelligence methods to support people management in organisations by Ewa Dominika Andrejczuk A dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science Advisors: Prof. Carles Sierra Prof. Juan Antonio Rodriguez-Aguilar Tutor: Prof. Carles Sierra Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Departamento de Sistemas Multiagente 2018 Abstract Organisations have shifted from work arranged around individual jobs to team- based work structures. A new generation of solutions for organisations must give support to team management by encouraging team effectiveness and introducing automation. In this dissertation, we tackle several different problems that are connected to team management in organisations. In particular, we contribute by proposing a people management workflow that addresses the problems connected to team composition as well as problems of accurate employee evaluation and task performance evaluation. First, we review the literature on team composition and formation from both the organisational psychology and computer science perspectives and we explore the connection between individuals' attributes and team performance as well as the cross fertilization opportunities between those fields. Second, we review the most prominent tools to measure individuals' at- tributes, as these measures are necessary inputs for team composition processes. In particular, we describe the dominant approaches in Organisational Psychol- ogy, Industrial Psychology and Human Resources and summarise they main findings to measure individual personality and competences. Third, we use our findings to propose a model to predict team performance given a task and based on individuals' attributes (i.e. competences, personality and gender). We define the Synergistic Team Composition Problem (STCP) as the problem of finding a team partition constrained by size so that each team, and the whole partition of employees into teams, is balanced in terms of individuals' competences, personality and gender. We propose two different algorithms to solve this problem: an optimal algorithm called STCPSolver that is effective for small instances of the problem, and an approximate algorithm called SynTeam that provides high-quality, but not necessarily optimal solutions. We present empirical results that we obtained when analysing student performance. Our results show the benefits of a more informed team composition that exploits individuals' competences, personalities and gender. Fourth, we devise an algorithm called Collaborative Judgment (CJ) to fairly evaluate individuals' and teams' outcomes once tasks are performed. In partic- ular, we want to diminish the importance of biases in the evaluation process by allowing evaluators to assess their peers, namely other evalutors. Our empirical results show the benefits of more informed assessment aggregation method. i Acknowledgements This incredible journey comes to an end. I can honestly say that doing a PhD is one of the most wonderful things I have done in my life. It also happens to be one of the toughest ones. Along the way I encountered dead-ends, hidden forks, snakes and it was dark at times. But I kept pushing and I stayed focused to earn something eternal: the title of doctor. I did it indeed but... I could not have done it without a countless support of people around me. I am forever indebted to my academic supervisors, Juan A. Rodriguez- Aguilar and Carles Sierra. In my journey towards this degree, you were my teachers, my friends, my inspiration, my role models and my pillars of support. Thank you for guiding me through the process of becoming a scientist. Thank you for your inspiration, encouragement, criticism, and, above all, patience and for always having time for me. You kept me focused and ensured I stay on course and do not deviate from the core of my research. Without your able guidance, this thesis would not have been possible and I shall eternally be grateful. To Alvaro Ortin, Matthew Walsh, Luis Artiles, Harald Messemer and an entire crew of Enzyme and CMT SL for receiving me with open arms. Wihout you this would not have been possible and your support and many discussions inspired the entire course of this thesis. I extend much gratitude to all teachers and students who helped with val- idating my algorithms, especially to Carme Roig, Sonia Roman, Rosa Duran Fonta and Angel Vidal Escales. A great part of this dissertation has been developed at a very special place, the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC). Thanks to all my fel- low colleagues in this adventure. With some of them the paths crossed for a short period of time, but they became an important part of my day-to-day life in the institute. To Paula, Kemo and Tito for suffering with me. To Albert, Borja, Ramon, Sergi and Toni for endless discussions in the lab. To Javier and Xavi for sharing the PhD wisdom. To Oguz for singing \In the Jungle" when I most needed it. I would also like to thank Andrew, Angels, Bruno, Christian, Filippo, Jesus, Lissette, Maite, Nardine, Patricia, Pere, Roberto, Felix, Ramon, and the other staff members, who were there when I needed a hand. I also want to thank all those who have supported me throughout this long journey. To my awesome polish girls, Martyna, Ruda and Katia. Thanks for all the visits, laughs, countless evenings with wine and keeping me (in)sane. To iii the people that made Barcelona feel like home. To Francys for being mi morena favorita. To Alicia for Spanish lessons free-of-charge and frenetic Ibiza nights. To Isaac for sharing my mambo passion. To Alex for messing with sandwiches and keeping me safe. To Manel for hikes, especially the ones to come. To so many people I met here and I failed to mention. Finally, above all, I want to thank my family. To my mother Anna and my father Ryszard who encouraged me to dream big and to my brother, Grzegorz, my sister-in-law, Agnieszka, my aunt Ela and my grandma Lola. Thank you for always being there for me, and for your constant support. To my nephew, Filip, hopefully you want to read this thesis one day (although you don't have to). I love you all. { Ewa Andrejczuk This work has been partially supported by an Industrial PhD scholarship from the Generalitat de Catalunya (DI-060). iv Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . 3 1.1.1 Individuals . 3 1.1.2 Teams and Organisations . 5 1.2 Open Research Questions . 8 1.3 Team Management: a vision . 9 1.4 Contributions & Guide To The Thesis . 11 2 Background and Related Work 15 2.1 Background . 15 2.1.1 Team Vocabulary . 15 2.1.2 Metrics between partial rankings . 16 2.2 Individual Assessments . 19 2.2.1 Models weighted by Reliability . 19 2.2.2 Models not weighted by Reliability . 20 2.3 Team and Organisation literature . 22 2.4 Team engineering in Computer Science . 23 2.4.1 WHO is concerned? . 24 2.4.2 WHAT is the problem? The notion of task . 26 2.4.3 WHY do we do it? The objective(s) . 29 2.4.4 HOW do we do it? The organisation . 34 2.4.5 WHEN do we do it? The dynamics . 39 2.4.6 WHERE do we do it? The context . 43 2.5 Team engineering in Organisational Psychology . 44 2.5.1 WHO is concerned? . 45 2.5.2 WHAT is the problem? . 47 2.5.3 WHY do we do it? . 49 2.5.4 HOW do we do it? The organisation . 50 2.5.5 WHEN do we do it? The dynamics . 54 2.5.6 WHERE do we do it? The context . 55 v 2.6 Discussion . 56 2.6.1 Similarities in both approaches . 56 2.6.2 Differences in both approaches . 57 2.6.3 Cross fertilization opportunities . 60 3 Individual Profiling Model 65 3.1 Personality . 65 3.1.1 Individual Traits Approach . 66 3.1.2 Team Balance Approach . 69 3.2 Competence . 73 3.2.1 A Competence Model . 74 3.2.2 Competence Assessments . 75 3.3 Summary . 82 4 Synergistic Team Composition Model 85 4.1 Introduction . 85 4.2 Basic Definitions . 86 4.3 A competence assignment problem . 88 4.3.1 Defining an assignment . 88 4.3.2 Properties of competence assignments . 89 4.3.3 Computing optimal inclusive assignment . 91 4.4 Synergistic Team Composition Model . 93 4.4.1 Evaluating team proficiency . 93 4.4.2 Evaluating team congeniality . 95 4.4.3 Evaluating synergistic teams . 96 4.5 Experimental Results . 97 4.5.1 Teacher Method . 97 4.5.2 Experimental Setting . 98 4.5.3 The procedure . 101 4.5.4 Experimental Results . 102 4.6 Discussion . 103 5 Organisational Team Engineering 105 5.1 The Synergistic Team Composition Problem . 106 5.1.1 Relation to the coalition formation literature . 107 5.2 Solving the STCP . 107 5.2.1 Partitioning the set of employees . 108 5.2.2 Linearising the STCP . 108 5.2.3 An algorithm to optimally solve the STCP . 109 5.2.4 An approximate algorithm to solve the STCP .