An Evaluation of Neural Networks Approaches used for Software Effort Estimation

Demand for software is increasing day by day due to its more usage in IT industries. It is a mega challenge for software industry to develop very high quality software effectively within stipulated time and budget. To accomplish this challenge, the software development process needs to be effectively managed and well planned. It is very important to have good effort estimation in order to manage well budget. This paper aims to highlight the application of data mining techniques that yields high software effort estimation accuracy in contrast with other well established effort estimation models using little features. The effect of the proposed work discussed in this paper consisting of several steps. These steps can provide cost-saving project effort estimation means to identify and select only relevant and necessary features. By applying data mining techniques project managers and experts can consume less time to predict software project effort and more time on more important issues in releasing the project in time to customers. Further, this work illustrates the advantages like less computation time and effort resulting in energy saving mandates that can be easily adapted in software development process.