Analogy-based model for software project effort estimation

Accurate effort estimation of software development plays an important role to predict how much effort should be prepared during the works of a software project so that it can be completed on time and budget. Some sectors, e.g. banking sectors, were renowned fields of software projects, not only due to its huge size of project, but also extremely expensive and takes a long time to completion. Project estimation is essential for software development project able to run on time and budget with maximum quality. This study aims to investigate the accuracy of software project effort estimation with the Analogy method using three parameters: Euclidean, Manhattan and Minkowski distance. Analogy based estimation consists several stage included similarity measure, analogy adaptation, estimation calculation and model evaluation. The results showed that the best combination of Analogy methods was using Manhattan distance with an accuracy of 50% MMRE, 28% MdMRE and Pred(25) 48%. Thus, we can concluded that this model can be used to predict accurately

Optimizing complexity weight parameter of use case points estimation using particle swarm optimization

Among algorithmic-based frameworks for software development effort estimation, Use Case Points I s one of the most used. Use Case Points is a well-known estimation framework designed mainly for object-oriented projects. Use Case Points uses the use case complexity weight as its essential parameter. The parameter is calculated with the number of actors and transactions of the use case. Nevertheless, use case complexity weight is discontinuous, which can sometimes result in inaccurate measurements and abrupt classification of the use case. The objective of this work is to investigate the potential of integrating particle swarm optimization (PSO) with the Use Case Points framework. The optimizer algorithm is utilized to optimize the modified use case complexity weight parameter. We designed and conducted an experiment based on real-life data set from three software houses. The proposed model’s accuracy and performance evaluation metric is compared with other published results, which are standardized accuracy, effect size, mean balanced residual error, mean inverted balanced residual error, and mean absolute error. Moreover, the existing models as the benchmark are polynomial regression, multiple linear regression, weighted case-based reasoning with (PSO), fuzzy use case points, and standard Use Case Points. Experimental results show that the proposed model generates the best value of standardized accuracy of 99.27% and an effect size of 1.15 over the benchmark models. The results of our study are promising for researchers and practitioners because the proposed model is actually estimating, not guessing, and generating meaningful estimation with statistically and practically significant

Evaluating subset selection methods for use case points estimation

When the Use Case Points method is used for software effort estimation, users are faced with low model accuracy which impacts on its practical application. This study investigates the significance of using subset selection methods for the prediction accuracy of Multiple Linear Regression models, obtained by the stepwise approach. K-means, Spectral Clustering, the Gaussian Mixture Model and Moving Window are evaluated as appropriate subset selection techniques. The methods were evaluated according to several evaluation criteria and then statistically tested. Evaluation was performing on two independent datasets-which differ in project types and size. Both were cut by the hold-out method. If clustering were used, the training sets were clustered into 3 classes; and, for each of class, an independent regression model was created. These were later used for the prediction of testing sets. If Moving Window was used, then window of sizes 5, 10 and 15 were tested. The results show that clustering techniques decrease prediction errors significantly when compared to Use Case Points or moving windows methods. Spectral Clustering was selected as the best-performing solution, because it achieves a Sum of Squared Errors reduction of 32% for the first dataset, and 98% for the second dataset. The Mean Absolute Percentage Error is less than 1% for the second dataset for Spectral Clustering; 9% for moving window; and 27% for Use Case Points. When the first dataset is used, then prediction errors are significantly higher -53% for Spectral Clustering, but Use Case Points produces a 165% result. It can be concluded that this study proves subset selection techniques as a significant method for improving the prediction ability of linear regression models - which are used for software development effort prediction. It can also be concluded that the clustering method performs better than the moving window method

A systematic review of software development cost estimation studies

This paper aims to provide a basis for the improvement of software estimation research through a systematic review of previous work. The review identifies 304 software cost estimation papers in 76 journals and classifies the papers according to research topic, estimation approach, research approach, study context and data set. A web-based library of these cost estimation papers is provided to ease the identification of relevant estimation research results. The review results combined with other knowledge provide support for recommendations for future software cost estimation research, including: 1) Increase the breadth of the search for relevant studies, 2) Search manually for relevant papers within a carefully selected set of journals when completeness is essential, 3) Conduct more studies on estimation methods commonly used by the software industry, and, 4) Increase the awareness of how properties of the data sets impact the results when evaluating estimation methods