Extending Change Impact Analysis Approach for Change Effort Estimation in the Software Development Phase

Change effort estimation and impact analysis are two important methods to make effective change acceptance decisions for the software development phase. Accepting too many changes causes additional cost and delay in the competition. On the other hand, rejection of the changes may cause customer dissatisfaction. There are very few works have been done to support effective change decisions in development phase compared to the software maintenance phase. The challenge of estimating the change effort for the software development phase is because of the existence of partially developed artifacts. In this paper, we describe our initial model towards developing a new change effort estimation model for the software development phase. Key-Words: Software development phase, change impact analysis, change effort estimation, requirements interactions, requirements, class