Integrate the GM(1,1) and Verhulst models to predict software stage effort

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Software effort prediction clearly plays a crucial role in software project management. In keeping with more dynamic approaches to software development, it is not sufficient to only predict the whole-project effort at an early stage. Rather, the project manager must also dynamically predict the effort of different stages or activities during the software development process. This can assist the project manager to reestimate effort and adjust the project plan, thus avoiding effort or schedule overruns. This paper presents a method for software physical time stage-effort prediction based on grey models GM(1,1) and Verhulst. This method establishes models dynamically according to particular types of stage-effort sequences, and can adapt to particular development methodologies automatically by using a novel grey feedback mechanism. We evaluate the proposed method with a large-scale real-world software engineering dataset, and compare it with the linear regression method and the Kalman filter method, revealing that accuracy has been improved by at least 28% and 50%, respectively. The results indicate that the method can be effective and has considerable potential. We believe that stage predictions could be a useful complement to whole-project effort prediction methods.National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of Chin

The Nature of Adherence to Planning – Systematic Review of Factors Influencing its Suitability as Criterion for IS Project Success

Derived from engineering, adherence to planning (ATP) is the central and most often used criterion for the evaluation of information system (IS) projects. Although this evaluation is questionable, as ATP does not account for all of IS projects’ particularities, a systematic evaluation of ATP’s suitability in the context of IS projects is still missing. As a first step to close this gap, we use aggregations of the project life cycle’s processes and conduct a systematic literature review to identify research dealing with these aggregations. Our results show that ATP’s suitability depends on an IS project’s context, and is not given or at least questionable in many cases. Researchers and managers should adapt the way of evaluating IS projects to avoid misleading implications

The Nature of Adherence to Planning as Criterion for Information System Project Success

Derived from engineering, adherence to planning (ATP) is the central and most often used criterion for the evaluation of information system (IS) projects. Although this evaluation is questionable as ATP does not account for all of IS projects\u27 particularities, a systematic approach for the assessment of ATP\u27s suitability in the context of IS projects is still missing. We propose a theory to explain the suitability of using ATP as success criterion for IS projects. Thereby, we use the project life cycle\u27s processes and their outcomes as the theory\u27s primary constructs. We argue for the constructs\u27 interdependencies corroborated by a systematic literature review. Our results show that ATP\u27s suitability is not given or at least questionable in many cases. Researchers and managers should adapt the way of evaluating IS projects to avoid misleading implications

Middle-class Offenders as Employees – Assessing the Risk:A 35-year Follow-up

A 35-year follow-up of a series of 317 middle-class offenders in England and Wales suggests that the dangers of employing offenders may be more limited than expected. Although 40% were subsequently convicted, only 8% were subsequently convicted of offenses that directly and adversely affected an employer. This work should challenge the “exaggerated fears” of employers. Interestingly, variables which normally predict subsequent criminal activity made no impact in trying to predict offenses against an employer

Time Predictions: Understanding and Avoiding Unrealism in Project Planning and Everyday Life

time predictions; human judgement; overoptimism; uncertainty; project managemen

A Systematic Mapping of Factors Affecting Accuracy of Software Development Effort Estimation

Software projects often do not meet their scheduling and budgeting targets. Inaccurate estimates are often responsible for this mismatch. This study investigates extant research on factors that affect accuracy of software development effort estimation. The purpose is to synthesize existing knowledge, propose directions for future research, and improve estimation accuracy in practice. A systematic mapping study (a comprehensive review of existing research) is conducted to identify such factors and their impact on estimation accuracy. Thirty-two factors assigned to four categories (estimation process, estimator’s characteristics, project to be estimated, and external context) are identified in a variety of research studies. Although the significant impact of several factors has been shown, results are limited by the lack of insight into the extent of these impacts. Our results imply a shift in research focus and design to gather more in-depth insights. Moreover, our results emphasize the need to argue for specific design decisions to enable a better understanding of possible influences of the study design on the credibility of the results. For software developers, our results provide a useful map to check the assumptions that undergird their estimates, to build comprehensive experience databases, and to adequately staff design projects

Architectural Adequacy and Evolutionary Adequacy as Characteristics of a Candidate Informational Money

For money-like informational commodities the notions of architectural adequacy and evolutionary adequacy are proposed as the first two stages of a moneyness maturity hierarchy. Then three classes of informational commodities are distinguished: exclusively informational commodities, strictly informational commodities, and ownable informational commodities. For each class money-like instances of that commodity class, as well as monies of that class may exist. With the help of these classifications and making use of previous assessments of Bitcoin, it is argued that at this stage Bitcoin is unlikely ever to evolve into a money. Assessing the evolutionary adequacy of Bitcoin is perceived in terms of a search through its design hull for superior design alternatives. An extensive comparison is made between the search for superior design alternatives to Bitcoin and the search for design alternatives to a specific and unconventional view on the definition of fractions.Comment: 25 page

Project management under uncertainty

Morris' (1986) analysis of the factors affecting project success and failure is considered in relation to the psychology of judgement under uncertainty. A model is proposed whereby project managers may identify the specific circumstances in which human decision-making is prone to systematic error, and hence may apply a number of de-biasing techniques