Software Cost Estimation Framework for Service-Oriented Architecture Systems Using Divide-and-Conquer Approach

Software cost and time estimation is the process of estimating the cost and time required to develop a software system. Software cost and time estimation supports the planning and tracking of software projects. Effectively controlling the expensive investment of software development is one of the important issues in software project management. Estimating software development cost with high precision is still a great challenge for project managers, because it allows for considerable financial and strategic planning. Software cost estimation refers to the predictions of the likely amount of effort, time, and staffing levels required to build a software system. A very helpful form of cost estimation is the one made at an early stage during a project, when the costing of the project is proposed for approval. However, estimates at the early stages of the development are the most difficult to obtain. In this paper a novel Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) based on soft computing approach is proposed for software cost estimation. This model carries some of the desirable features of neural networks approach, such as learning ability and good interpretability, while maintaining the merits of the COCOMO model. Unlike the standard neural networks approach, the proposed model can be interpreted and validated by experts, and has good generalisation capability. The model deals effectively with imprecise and uncertain input and enhances the reliability of software cost estimates. From the experimental results, it was concluded that, by the proposed neural network model, the accuracy of cost estimation can be improved and the estimated cost can be very close to the actual cost.

Software systems of today are often complex, making development costs difficult to estimate. This paper uses data from 50 projects performed at one of the largest banks in Sweden to identify factors that have an impact on software development cost. Correlation analysis of the relationship between factor states and project costs was assessed using ANOVA and regression analysis. Ten out of the original 31 factors turned out to have an impact on software development project cost at the Swedish bank including the: number of function points, involved risk, number of budget revisions, primary platform, project priority, commissioning body's unit, commissioning body, number of project participants, project duration, and number of consultants. In order to be able to compare projects of different size and complexity, this study also considers the software development productivity defined as the amount of function points per working hour in a project. The study at the bank indicates that the productivity is affected by factors such as performance of estimation and prognosis efforts, project type, number of budget revisions, existence of testing conductor, presentation interface, and number of project participants. A discussion addressing how the productivity factors relate to cost estimation models and their factors is presented. Some of the factors found to have an impact on cost are already included in estimation models such as COCOMO II, TEAMATe, and SEER-SEM, for instance function points and software platform. Thus, this paper validates these well-known factors for cost estimation. However, several of the factors found in this study are not included in established models for software development cost estimation. Thus, this paper also provides indications for possible extensions of these models.

Playing a pivotal role in software development, the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) offers a systematic and structured approach to cost estimation. It stands as a widely utilized model, aiding project managers in estimating the required effort, time, and cost for software development projects. COCOMO takes into consideration diverse factors, including the project's size, complexity, and the experience of the development team. The utilization of COCOMO empowers software development teams to make informed decisions related to resource allocation, project scheduling, and budgeting. Its application extends to managing expectations, enhancing project planning, and mitigating the risk of cost overruns. The integration of machine learning assumes a critical role in advancing cost estimation within the realm of software development, specifically through COCOMO. Through the utilization of machine learning algorithms, COCOMO gains the capability to analyze and interpret extensive datasets, taking into account numerous complex factors that influence project costs. This work aims to propose a model for software cost estimation using an advanced machine learning technique, i.e. Adaptive boosting, which has improved accuracy, reduced overfitting, effectiveness with imbalanced data, and good generalization capabilities. The proposed work may contribute to the success of software projects, providing a reliable and comprehensive framework for cost estimation.

The accuracy of software cost estimation depends on the relevancy of the cost estimation dataset, the quality of its data and its suitability for the targeted software development environment. Software development cost is impacted by technical, socio-economic and country-specific organizational and cultural environments. Current publicly available software cost estimation datasets represent environments of North America and Europe, thus limiting their application in technically and economically constrained software industries. In this paper we introduce the SEERA (Software enginEERing in SudAn) cost estimation dataset, a dataset of 120 software development projects representing 42 organizations in Sudan. The SEERA dataset contains 76 attributes and, unlike current cost estimation datasets, is augmented with metadata and the original raw data. This paper describes the data collection process, submitting organizations and project characteristics. In addition, we give a general analysis of the dataset projects to illustrate the impact of local factors on software project cost and compare the data quality of the SEERA dataset to public datasets from the PROMISE repository. The SEERA dataset fills a gap in the diversity of current cost estimation datasets and provides researchers with an opportunity to evaluate the generalization of previous and future cost estimation methods to constrained environments and to develop new techniques that are more suitable for these environments.

Chapter 8 - Software costing in practice

Cost overrun of software projects is major cause of their failures. In order to facilitate accurate software cost estimation, there are several metrics, tools and datasets. In this paper, we evaluate and compare different metrics and datasets in terms of similarities and differences of involved software attributes. These metrics forecast project cost estimations based on different software attributes. Some of these metrics are public and standard while others are only employed in a particular metric tool/dataset. Sixteen public cost estimation datasets are collected and analyzed. Different perspectives are used to compare and classify those datasets. Tools for feature selection and classification are used to find the most important attributes in cost estimation datasets toward the goal of effort prediction. In order to have better estimation it is needed to correlate cost estimation from different resources, which requires a unified standard for software cost estimation metric tools and datasets. It is pertinent that a common cost estimation model may not work for each project due to diverse project size, application areas etc. We suggest having a standardized terminology of project attributes used for cost estimation. This would improve cost estimation as multiple metrics could be applied on a project without much additional effort.

Accurate software cost and schedule estimation are essential for software project success. Often it referred to as the black art because of its complexity and uncertainty, software estimation is not as difficult or puzzling as people think. In fact, generating accurate estimates is straightforward -- once you understand the intensity of uncertainty and framework for the modeling process. The mystery to successful software estimation -- distilling academic information and real-world experience into a practical guide for working software professionals. Instead of arcane treatises and rigid modeling techniques, this will guide highlights a proven set of procedures, understandable formulas, and heuristics that individuals and development teams can apply to their projects to help achieve estimation proficiency with choose appropriate development approaches In the early stage of software life cycle project manager are inefficient to estimate the effort, schedule, cost estimation and its development approach. This in turn, confuses the manager to bid effectively on software project and choose incorrect development approach. That will directly effect on productivity cycle and increase level of uncertainty. This becomes a strong cause of project failure. So to avoid such problem if we know level and sources of uncertainty in model design, It will directive the developer to design accurate software cost and schedule estimation. Which are essential for software project success. However once the required efforts have estimated, little is done to recalibrate and reduce the uncertainty of the initial estimates. This paper demonstrates terminology and typology of uncertainty is presented together with a framework for the modeling process, Brief reviews have been made of 14 different (partly complementary) methods commonly used in uncertainty assessment its interaction with the broader system development process and the role of uncertainty at different stages in the modeling processes.. The applicability of these methods has been mapped according to purpose of application, stage of the modeling process and source and type of uncertainty addressed.

PurposeThe Government’s investment in infrastructure projects is considerably high, especially in bridge construction projects. Government authorities must establish an initial forecasted budget to have transparency in transactions. Early cost estimating is challenging for Quantity Surveyors due to incomplete project details at the initial stage and the unavailability of standard cost estimating techniques for bridge projects. To mitigate the difficulties in the traditional preliminary cost estimating methods, there is a requirement to develop a new initial cost estimating model which is accurate, user friendly and straightforward. The research was carried out in Sri Lanka, and this paper aims to develop the artificial neural network (ANN) model for an early cost estimate of concrete bridge systems.Design/methodology/approachThe construction cost data of 30 concrete bridge projects which are in Sri Lanka constructed within the past ten years were trained and tested to develop an ANN cost model. Backpropagation technique was used to identify the number of hidden layers, iteration and momentum for optimum neural network architectures.FindingsAn ANN cost model was developed, furnishing the best result since it succeeded with around 90% validation accuracy. It created a cost estimation model for the public sector as an accurate, heuristic, flexible and efficient technique.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the current body of knowledge by providing the most accurate early-stage cost estimate for the concrete bridge systems in Sri Lanka. In addition, the research findings would be helpful for stakeholders and policymakers to propose policy recommendations that positively influence the prediction of the most accurate cost estimate for concrete bridge construction projects in Sri Lanka and other developing countries.

Satellite constellations and Distributed Spacecraft Mission (DSM) architectures offer unique benefits to Earth observation scientists and unique challenges to cost estimators. The Cost and Risk (CR) module of the Tradespace Analysis Tool for Constellations (TAT-C) being developed by NASA Goddard seeks to address some of these challenges by providing a new approach to cost modeling, which aggregates existing Cost Estimating Relationships (CER) from respected sources, cost estimating best practices, and data from existing and proposed satellite designs. Cost estimation through this tool is approached from two perspectives: parametric cost estimating relationships and analogous cost estimation techniques. The dual approach utilized within the TAT-C CR module is intended to address prevailing concerns regarding early design stage cost estimates, and offer increased transparency and fidelity by offering two preliminary perspectives on mission cost. This work outlines the existing cost model, details assumptions built into the model, and explains what measures have been taken to address the particular challenges of constellation cost estimating. The risk estimation portion of the TAT-C CR module is still in development and will be presented in future work. The cost estimate produced by the CR module is not intended to be an exact mission valuation, but rather a comparative tool to assist in the exploration of the constellation design tradespace. Previous work has noted that estimating the cost of satellite constellations is difficult given that no comprehensive model for constellation cost estimation has yet been developed, and as such, quantitative assessment of multiple spacecraft missions has many remaining areas of uncertainty. By incorporating well-established CERs with preliminary approaches to approaching these uncertainties, the CR module offers more complete approach to constellation costing than has previously been available to mission architects or Earth scientists seeking to leverage the capabilities of multiple spacecraft working in support of a common goal.

It is well documented that the software industry suffers from frequent cost overruns, and the software cost estimation remains a challenging issue. A contributing factor is, we believe, the inherent uncertainty of assessment of cost. Considering the uncertainty with cost drivers and representing the cost as a distribution of values can help us better understand the uncertainty of cost estimations and provide decision support for budge setting or cost control. In this paper, we use Bayesian belief networks to extend the COCOMO II for cost estimation with uncertainty, and construct the probabilistic cost model COCOMO-U. This model can be used to deal with the uncertainties of cost factors and estimate the cost probability distribution. We also demonstrate how the COCOMO-U is used to provide decision support for software development budget setting and cost control in a case study.

Software cost estimation is very crucial for the success of the software. For this reason, many studies have been conducted to identify various cost estimation techniques and barriers affecting the software estimation process in traditional development. However, these days, most software development organizations are working following agile methodologies. Therefore, there is a need to identify the critical success factors and barriers of cost estimation for agile methodology followers. In this study, a systematic literature review and survey is conducted to determine the crucial success factors and barriers of cost estimation. Therefore, this study might help an agile project manager plan the cost and effort of the software project by getting an idea from the list we have provided after validating the techniques used from the state of the art and industry so that we can come up with practical guidelines.

Effective software cost and size estimation is essential for planning and resource allocation in software development. Recent empirical work which attempts to validate, or which compares, software size and cost estimation models and tools is surveyed. Some observations are made concerning the rather poor results frequently obtained and the need for calibration of models for specific development environments.

In this study, an analysis is performed in order to explore whether and how culture and leadership factors have an impact on the accuracy of software effort and cost estimation. A survey on software development projects within government departments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was undertaken. A Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) cost estimation model incorporating organizational and intercultural factors was developed and evaluated. The results indicated that the inclusion of such data into explanatory estimation models such as BBNs could provide useful information and increase the accuracy of final estimates.

The development of a successfull software depends upon the accurate estimation, as various factors are responsible for the overall assessment of any project. The Sofware Cost Estimation is the most complicated and challenging task in software industry. Many estimation models are introduced by the time, that concludes estimation is not a precise science and demanding of new methodologies should be proposed day by day. Software Cost Estimation of a project is vital to the acceptance or rejection of the development of software project. Various techniques have been introduced. This paper enlightens two categories of Software Cost Estimation techniques ie Algorithimic and Non Algorithimic. This paper evaluates the Algorithmic Models such as SLIM, COCOMO, Function Points and Non Algorithimic Models such as Analogy, Expert Judgement which are used to estimate software costs. Poor planning frequently leads to project failure and considerable outcomes for the project team. Software project managers should be aware of the increasing of project failures. In this paper, several existing methods for software cost estimation are illustrated and their aspects will be discussed.

Time pressure in software engineering: A systematic review