Comparison of available Methods to Estimate Effort, Performance and Cost with the Proposed Method

Reliable effort estimation remains an ongoing challenge to software engineers. Accurate effort estimation is the state of art of software engineering, effort estimation of software is the preliminary phase. The relationship between the client and the business enterprise begins with the estimation of the software. Accurate effort estimation gives a good cost estimate.The authors have proposed an efficient effort and cost estimation system based on quality assurance coverage.The paper also focuses on a problem with the current method for measuring function points that constrains the effective use of function points and suggests a modification to the approach that should enhance the accuracy. The idea of grouping is introduced to the adjustment factors to simplify the process of adjustment and to ensure more consistency in the adjustments. The proposed method uses fuzzy logic for quantifying the quality of requirements and this quality factor is added as one of the adjustment factor. Effort/cost estimation is calculated using the author’s proposed model taking hospital desktop application and HR application as case studies. Performance measurement is a fundamental building block of TQM and a total quality organisation. It is an measurement indicator for software development projects to define, understand, collect and analyze data, then see the priority through valid comparisons and make appropriate improvement action. One of the indicators is Effort Estimation which helps in managing overall budgeting and planning.A comparative study of the performance measurement of the software project is done between the existing model and the proposed model.Cost estimation of software projects is an important management activity. Despite research efforts the accuracy of estimates does not seem to improve. The calculated function point from the author’s method is taken as input and it is given to the static single variable model (Intermediate COCOMO and COCOMO II) for cost estimation whose cost factors are tailored in intermediate COCOMO and both, cost and scale factors are tailored in COCOMO II to suite to the individual development environment, which is very important for the accuracy of the cost estimates.Thus author’s model is for the improvement of software effort/cost estimation research through a series of quality attributes along with constructive cost model (COCOMO). For quality assurance ISO 9126 quality factors are used and for the weighing factors the function point metric is used as an estimation approach. Estimated Effort and Cost using author’s proposed function pointare compared with the existing models.