Software effort estimation and risk analysis - a case study

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.

An international association advancing the multidisciplinary study of informing systems. Founded in 1998, the Informing Science Institute (ISI) is a global community of academics shaping the future of informing science.

The Software Cost Estimation (SCE) is one of most important issues in the cycle of development, management decision, and in the quality of software project. In the case of the lack of certainty of the exact cost for software projects' development, companies encounter with numerous challenges. Also, due to inaccurate cost estimates, making wrong decisions by project managers make irreparable damage. To reach this propos, the effective factors for developing software projects should be evaluated to ensure of the projects success. COCOMO model is the main model for SCE which acts based on criteria and quantities such as number of Line of Code (LOC) or the Function Point Analysis (FPA). Research in recent years has shown that COCOMO model has not a good performance in the SCE. In this paper, we studied SCE by using a hybrid of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) which are Meta-Heuristic Algorithms. Test results show that proposed model, GA and ABC algorithms have less MRE errors values than the COCOMO model. Also, the hybrid model has better convergence comparing with the GA and ABC algorithms.

On the dynamic use of project performance and schedule risk information during projecttracking

The effort involved in developing a software product plays an important role in determining the success or failure. In the context of developing software using object oriented methodologies, traditional methods and metrics were extended to help managers in effort estimation activity. Software project managers require a reliable approach for effort estimation. It is especially important during the early stage of the software development life cycle. In this paper, the main goal is to estimate the cost of various software projects using class point approach and optimize the parameters using six types of adaptive regression techniques such as multi-layer perceptron, multivariate adaptive regression splines, projection pursuit regression, constrained topological mapping, K nearest neighbor regression and radial basis function network to achieve better accuracy. Also a comparative analysis of software effort estimation using these various adaptive regression techniques has been provided. By estimating the effort required to develop software projects accurately, we can have softwares with acceptable quality within budget and on planned schedules.

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.

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.

Software project risk analysis using Bayesian networks with causality constraints

Software cost and effort estimation using dragonfly whale optimized multilayer perceptron neural network

Software effort estimation is a crucial phase in software project management. Accuracy of estimation directly affects project success or failure. Managers try to estimate proper effort resources and this is a challenging issue for management. Having a set of tools and methodologies, estimation process can be made better. COCOMO is one of the most used model which has a parametric form. Also, artificial neural networks (ANN) are combined with COCOMO and these methods increased overall performance. However, effort estimation process generally produces one output; estimation value. It is a well-known issue that a project manager must keep in the mind that any estimation must have some upper and lower limits, boundaries. In this paper, a novel method, combining COCOMO used ANN with K-Means is used to estimate effort and possible boundaries. ANN output is used as input to K-Means sets and proper set value is calculated, including possible lower and upper effort estimation value. Experimental results are shown that proposed method has acceptable results over ANN and COCOMO.

Nowadays, software effort estimation plays an important role in software project management due to its extensive use in industry to monitor progress, and performance, determine overall productivity and assist in project planning. After the success of methods such as IFPUG Function Point Analysis, MarkII Function Point Analysis, and COSMIC Full Function Points, several other extension methods have been introduced to be adopted in software projects. Despite the efficiency in measuring the software cost, software effort estimation, unfortunately, is facing several issues; it requires some knowledge, effort, and a significant amount of time to conduct the measurement, thus slightly ruining the advantages of this approach. This paper demonstrates a functional size measurement tool, named UML Point tool, that utilizes the concept of IFPUG Function Point Analysis directly to Unified Modeling Language (UML) model. The tool allows the UML eXchange Format (UXF) file to decode the UML model of mobile game requirement and extract the diagrams into component complexity, object interface complexity, and sequence diagram complexity, according to the defined measurement rules. UML Point tool then automatically compute the functional size, effort, time, human resources, and total development cost of mobile game. Besides, this paper also provides a simple case study to validate the tool. The initial results proved that the tool could be useful to improve estimation accuracy for mobile game application development and found to be reliable to be applied in the mobile game industry.

The software cost estimation aims to predict the most realistic effort that is required to finish a software project and so it is critical to the success of a software project management. A Software Cost Estimation affects nearly all management activities, including project bidding, resource allocation and project planning. It is affected by a number of factors, such as implementation efficiency, as well as how much the various reviews and studies completed prior to the software development stage cost. Accurate cost estimation will help us to complete the project on time and within budget. Accurate estimation is important because it has led to extensive research into the methods of software cost estimation. Some important software cost estimation methods have been studied in this research work. In addition, we have set out own criteria, which has been used to compare all the different selected methods. We have also given a score for each evaluation criteria, so that we can compare the different methods numerically for cost estimation. Our observations have shown that it is best to use a number of different estimating techniques or cost models, and then compare the results before determining the reasons for any of the large variations. None of the methods are necessarily better or worse than the others. We found, in fact, that their strengths and weaknesses often complement each other. Therefore, the main conclusion is that there is no one single technique that is best for every situation, and the results of a number of different approaches need to be carefully considered to discover what is the most likely to produce estimates that are realistic.

Estimating the software size and effort helps in early prediction of uncertainties in software development. Determining the size helps in ascertaining the effort, cost, and schedule for entire project. In context of mobile software, the existing techniques for software effort estimations could be adapted as such or with modifications. There are many software size and effort estimation metrics. In this paper, Use Case Point (UCP) metric is aimed for estimating size and effort for mobile application. Five android mobile applications are considered as a case study, and difference in actual effort and estimated effort is evaluated. Modified UCP has been also proposed to improve the results by considering mobile-specific characteristics.

Software development effort estimation is one of the most crucial activities in software engineering. Effort estimation permits managers and software engineers to anticipate, forecast, and precisely quote the schedule, budget and manpower requirements. By accurately estimating the effort; software projects can be saved from under run or over run. In this paper we have summarized and then analyzed the past work of software effort estimation in a systematic way. 10 researches were surveyed and explained briefly that how they are contributing towards solving the effort estimation problem in terms of time, cost or test. It also emphasizes that various effort estimation models have different pros and cons and can be used in different context on basis of different types of historical data. The survey discovered the most popular models used for effort prediction are supervised learning algorithms. The trends identified through this survey can help in exploring the potential research areas.

Purpose The study aims to investigate the application of the data element market in software project management, focusing on improving effort estimation by addressing challenges faced by traditional methods. Design/methodology/approach This study proposes a solution based on feature selection, utilizing the data element market and reinforcement learning-based algorithms to enhance the accuracy of software effort estimation. It explores the application of the MARLFS algorithm, customizing improvements to the algorithm and reward function. Findings This study demonstrates that the proposed approach achieves more precise estimation compared to traditional methods, leveraging feature selection to guide project management in software development. Originality/value This study contributes to the field by offering a novel approach that com-bines the data element market, machine learning, and feature selection to improve software effort estimation, addressing limitations of traditional methods and providing insights for future research in project management.