Understanding the role of individual nodes is a key challenge in the study of spreading processes on networks. In this work we propose a novel metric, the reachability-heterogeneity (RH), to quantify the contribution of each node to the robustness of the network against a spreading process. We then introduce a dataset consisting of four large engineering projects described by their activity networks, including records of the performance of each activity, i.e., whether it was timely delivered or delayed; such data, describing the spreading of performance fluctuations across activities, can be used as a reliable ground truth for the study of spreading phenomena on networks. We test the validity of the RH metric on these project networks, and discover that nodes scoring low in RH tend to consistently perform better. We also compare RH and seven other node metrics, showing that the former is highly interdependent with activity performance. Given the context agnostic nature of RH, our results, based on real-world data, signify the role that network structure plays with respect to overall project performance.

在研究网络上的传播过程时，了解各个节点的作用是一项关键挑战。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种新颖的度量标准，即可达性-异构性（RH），以量化每个节点对网络扩展过程中鲁棒性的贡献。然后，我们引入一个由四个大型工程项目组成的数据集，这些项目由它们的活动网络描述，包括每个活动的绩效记录，即活动是否及时交付或延迟；此类数据描述了各种活动之间的绩效波动分布，可以用作研究网络上分布现象的可靠基础。我们在这些项目网络上测试了RH指标的有效性，并发现RH中得分较低的节点往往会表现出更好的性能。我们还比较了RH和其他七个节点指标，表明前者与活动绩效高度相关。考虑到RH的上下文不可知性，我们基于实际数据的结果表明，网络结构在总体项目绩效方面发挥着作用。