Although there is broad agreement on the sorts of things to take into account when measuring functional size, there is a variety of opinion about how to do it. This is partly because several different views of functionality are addressed in functional size measurement. Some are better understood than others. In particular, the “general systems characteristics” (GSC’s) and “value adjustment fact...

Despite the predictive performance of AnalogyBased Estimation (ABE) in generating better effort estimates, there is no consensus on: (1) how to predetermine the appropriate number of analogies, (2) which adjustment technique produces better estimates. Yet, there is no prior works attempted to optimize both number of analogies and feature distance weights for each test project. Perhaps rather th...

This chapter deals with some technical aspects of the strategies for IT Governance described in most of the other chapters of this book. The practical application of IT Governance techniques and tactics requires the collection and analysis of measurable data that guide estimation, decision-making and assessment, since it is common sense that one can control and manage better what one is able to...

The construction of software cost estimation models remains an active topic of research. The basic premise of cost modelling is that a historical database of software project cost data can be used to develop a quantitative model to predict the cost of future projects. One of the difficulties faced by workers in this area is that many of these historical databases contain substantial amounts of ...

The need for more and more dependable systems has been increased in the last decades. Strategic decisions during the design of these dependable systems require the joint control of the estimated cost and the product quality. Cost efficiency and development time became the most important factors of the software development process according to the international trends. The estimation of the cost...

Numerous studies over the years have shown that information systems development (ISD) projects often run over budget or fail entirely. Such failures are not restricted to certain industry sectors or project types; rather they occur with some regularity in systems development projects and organizations of all types and sizes. Cost estimation has long been a difficult task in systems development,...

Function Points is an important and well-accepted software size metric. However, it is absolutely essential to accurately calibrate Function Point (FP), whose aims are to fit specific software application, to reflect software industry trend, and to improve cost estimation. Neuro-Fuzzy is a technique that incorporates the learning ability from neural network and the ability to capture human know...

Now a day’s software cost/effort estimation is a very complex job to do. Several estimation techniques have been developed in this regard. This assessment of parameters like, time, cost, and number of staff required sequentially which in turn is to be done at an early stage. Constructive Cost model which is also known as COCOMO model was one of the best model to estimate the cost and time in pe...

Software Effort Estimation is the process of estimating the effort required to develop software. By estimating the effort, the cost and schedule required to estimate the software can be determined. Accurate Estimate helps the developer to allocate the resource accordingly in order to avoid cost overrun and schedule overrun. Several methods are available in order to estimate the effort among whi...

Software development has always been characterized by some metrics. One of the greatest challenges for software developers lies in predicting the development effort for a software system which is based on developer abilities, size, complexity and other metrics. Several algorithmic cost estimation models such as Boehm’s COCOMO, Albrecht's' Function Point Analysis, Putnam’s SLIM, ESTIMACS etc. ar...