548 research outputs found
Effect of Schedule Compression on Project Effort
Schedule pressure is often faced by project managers and software developers who want to quickly deploy
information systems. Typical strategies to compress project time scales might include adding more
staff/personnel, investing in development tools, improving hardware, or improving development methods. The
tradeoff between cost, schedule, and performance is one of the most important analyses performed during the
planning stages of software development projects. In order to adequately compare the effects of these three
constraints on the project it is essential to understand their individual influence on the project’s outcome.
In this paper, we present an investigation into the effect of schedule compression on software project
development effort and cost and show that people are generally optimistic when estimating the amount of
schedule compression. This paper is divided into three sections. First, we follow the Ideal Effort Multiplier
(IEM) analysis on the SCED cost driver of the COCOMO II model. Second, compare the real schedule
compression ratio exhibited by 161 industry projects and the ratio represented by the SCED cost driver.
Finally, based on the above analysis, a set of newly proposed SCED driver ratings for COCOMO II are
introduced which show an improvement of 6% in the model estimating accuracy
Early Phase Cost Models for Agile Software Processes in the US DoD
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2017.10Background: Software effort estimates are necessary
and critical at an early phase for decision makers to establish
initial budgets, and in a government context to select the most
competitive bidder for a contract. The challenge is that estimated
software requirements is the only size information available at
this stage, compounded with the newly increasing adoption of
agile processes in the US DoD.
Aims: The objectives are to improve cost estimation by investigating
available sizing measures, and providing practical effort
estimation models for agile software development projects during
the contract bidding phase or earlier.
Method: The analysis explores the effects of independent variables
for product size, peak staff, and domain on effort. The empirical
data for model calibration is from 20 industrial projects completed
recently for the US DoD, among a larger dataset of recent
projects using other lifecycle processes.
Results: Statistical results showed that initial software requirements
is a valid size metric for estimating agile software development
effort. Prediction accuracy improves when peak staff and
domain are added as inputs to the cost models.
Conclusion: These models may be used for estimates of agile
projects, and evaluating software development contract cost
proposals with inputs available during the bidding phase or
earlier
Foundations of Empirical Software Engineering: The Legacy of Victor R. Basili
This book captures the main scientific contributions of Victor R. Basili, who has significantly shaped the field of empirical software engineering from its very start. He was the first to claim that software engineering needed to follow the model of other physical sciences and develop an experimental paradigm. By working on this postulate, he developed concepts that today are well known and widely used, including the Goal-Question-Metric method, the Quality-Improvement paradigm, and the Experience Factory. He is one of the few software pioneers who can aver that their research results are not just scientifically acclaimed but are also used as industry standards. On the occasion of his 65th birthday, celebrated with a symposium in his honor at the International Conference on Software Engineering in St. Louis, MO, USA in May 2005, Barry Boehm, Hans Dieter Rombach, and Marvin V. Zelkowitz, each a long-time collaborator of Victor R. Basili, selected the 20 most important research papers of their friend, and arranged these according to subject field. They then invited renowned researchers to write topical introductions. The result is this commented collection of timeless cornerstones of software engineering, hitherto available only in scattered publications
Estimating Systems Engineering Reuse
Systems engineering reuse is the utilization of previously developed systems engineering products or artifacts such as
architectures, requirements, and test plans across different projects. Such reuse is intended as a means of reducing development cost, project schedule, or performance risk, by avoiding the repetition of some systems engineering activities. Although projects involving systems engineering reuse are becoming more frequent, models or tools for estimating the cost, benefit, and overall impact on a project as a result of reusing products or artifacts have not yet been adequately developed. This paper provides an overview of systems engineering reuse and recent developments with the Constructive Systems Engineering Cost Model (COSYSMO) to estimate the effect of reuse on systems engineering effort. The overview of systems engineering reuse includes a review of how reuse is handled in other domains and results from an industry survey. The recent developments in COSYSMO presents on-going research in the creation of a reuse extension for the model such as the identification of categories of systems engineering reuse, reuse extensions for the size drivers in the model, and a revised set of cost drivers
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