Identifying Effort Estimation Factors for Corrective Maintenance in Object-Oriented Systems

This research explores the decision-making process of expert estimators of corrective maintenance projects by usingqualitative methods to identify the factors that they use in deriving estimates. We implement a technique called causalmapping, which allows us to identify the cognitive links between the information that estimators use, and the estimates thatthey produce based on that information. Results suggest that a total of 17 factors may be relevant for corrective maintenanceeffort estimation, covering constructs related to developers, code, defects, and environment. This line of research aims ataddressing the limitations of existing maintenance estimation models that do not incorporate a number of soft factors, thus,achieving less accurate estimates than human experts

The impact of developer team sizes on the structural attributes of software

It is established that the internal quality of software is a key determinant of the total cost of ownership of that software. The objective of this research is to determine the impact that the development team’s size has on the internal structural attributes of a codebase and, in doing so, we consider the impact that the team’s size may have on the internal quality of the software that they produce. In this paper we leverage the wealth of data available in the open-source domain by mining detailed data from 1000 projects in Google Code and, coupled with one of the most established of object-oriented metric suites, we isolate and identify the effect that the development team size has on internal structural attributes of the software produced. We will find that some measures of functional decomposition are enhanced when we compare projects authored by fewer developers against those authored by a larger number of developers while measures of cohesion and complexity are degraded

Harnessing a knowledge worker’s competency: Lessons from the software development teams

In this conceptual paper, we propose that the work force can no longer be understood only as a factor of production, but must be projected as a strategic core competency of any organization. The “knowledge-based”, post-industrial economy has lead to a higher degree of pressure on the corporations to nurture and enhance their key strategic resource viz. the Knowledge worker(K-worker). Based on the resource based view and firm strategy, we hereby define the core human competency of the K-worker as a firm specific, rent-generating resource manifested in the behavior pattern of its employees that is aligned with a firm’s core business activities. Besides, our literature survey of the software developer’s field suggests the key business imperatives of future orientation, customer orientation, team work, problem resolution and quality. Hence, these five are hypothesized as the key human competency determinants of a software developer or a K-worker.Thus, our novel approach presupposes that the human competency grows with and around the key business activities of a business organization. The utility of this approach is projected through the lens of the systems view via the fifth discipline and integrated with the quality management practices to build a bulwark for the nurturing of human core competencies. At the heart of this systemic thinking is a shift of mind better termed as “metanoia”.We thus emphasize that k-worker management needs a more individualized and customized appreciation unlike what has been the norm so far.This strategic human competency approach is then the crucial ground for a learning enabled organization of the future that is struggling under enormous pressure of competition in today’s landscape

Function Point: A Quality Loom for the Effort Assessment of Software Systems

Summary Accurate estimation of software development effort is critical in software engineering. Underestimates lead to time pressures that may compromise full functional development and thorough testing of software. In the existing systems, the effort and cost estimation are more concentrated only on the development of software systems alone and not on the quality coverage. Hence the quality assurance for the effort estimation is proposed in this paper. To assure this quality, the ISO 9126 quality factors are used. For weighing the factors, the function point metric is used as an estimation approach. The classification of software system for which the effort estimation is to be calculated based on the COCOMO model classes. An exhaustive literature survey reveals that attention is not paid to the following for estimating the effort: 1. Function point, 2. COCOMO classes of systems, and 3. ISO9126 quality factors. Thus by combining all the three parts, a new effort estimation method is developed as a research approach

Effort Estimation Factors for Corrective Software Maintenance Projects: A Qualitative Analysis of Estimation Criteria

In this paper, we identify factors that impact software maintenance effort by exploring expert software maintenance estimators’ knowledge about corrective maintenance projects. We use a qualitative approach to identify the issues important to these experts to derive their effort estimates. We find seventeen factors (rated and rank ordered by importance) that affect corrective maintenance effort and include constructs related to developers, code, defects, and environment. Several of these factors that have a comparably strong influence on corrective maintenance estimation are unique to corrective maintenance and are not generally observed in established software estimation models. The results enhance organizations’ ability to effectively manage maintenance environments by focusing attention on the identified areas. For future research, these results represent an important step toward developing a comprehensive and accurate corrective maintenance effort estimation model

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

Identifying effort estimation factors for corrective maintenance in object-oriented systems

This research identifies factors that impact software maintenance effort by exploring the decision-making process of expert estimators of corrective maintenance projects by using qualitative methods to identify the factors that they use in deriving estimates. We implement a technique called causal mapping, which allows us to identify the cognitive links between the information that estimators use, and the estimates that they produce based on that information. Results suggest that a total of 17 factors may be relevant for corrective maintenance effort estimation, covering constructs related to developers, code, defects, and environment. When these factors are rank-ordered, they demonstrate that some of the factors that have greater influence on corrective maintenance estimation, as expressed by expert estimators, are very specific to corrective maintenance and not generally observed in popular software estimation or maintenance estimation models. This line of research aims at addressing the limitations of existing maintenance estimation models that do not incorporate a number of soft factors, thus, achieving less accurate estimates than human experts

Common Causes of IT Project Failure in Public Universities in Oklahoma

Information technology (IT) project management is a dynamic field. It requires a project manager who knows how to manage a project and possesses a knowledge of technology. The purpose of this research is to find the common factors that contribute to IT project failure in public universities in Oklahoma and know what role facilitated the failed IT project. For the purposes of this study, the roles leading the projects are a certified project manager, a non-certified project manager, or a non-project manager. Also, IT projects for this study are ones that require hardware changes, software changes or integrate new technology. The goal of this study is to help public universities successfully implement IT projects. Successfully implementing an IT project in a public university might help the university be a better steward of both taxpayer funds and private donations