Strategies in Software Development Effort Estimation

Software development effort estimating has notoriously been the Achilles heel of the software planning process. Accurately evaluating the effort required to accomplish a software change continues to be problematic, especially in Agile software development. IT organizations and project managers depend on estimation accuracy for planning software deliveries and cost determination. The purpose of this multiple case qualitative study was to identify strategies used by software development professionals in providing accurate effort estimations to stakeholders. The planning fallacy served as the studyâs conceptual framework. The participants were 10 software development professionals who were actively engaged in delivering estimates of effort on software development requests in South Texas in the United States. Data were collected from 10 software development professionals in 5 different organizations. Additionally, 23 organizational documents were gathered and reviewed. Thematic analysis was used to identify codes and themes. Prominent themes were (a) defining and decomposing requirements, (b) referencing historical data, (c) identifying risks and unknowns, and (d) fostering communication, collaboration, and a consensus. A key recommendation is for software developers to ensure requirements are defined and decomposed by evaluating the request and breaking the request into manageable pieces to understand the effort required to complete the task. Implications for positive social change include improving morale, work-life balance, alignment of expectations, and software quality