1. Software Project Estimation IMRAN ASHRAF
Software Engineering
Software Project Estimation
IMRAN ASHRAF

2. Possibilities for software project estimation
Base estimates on similar projects that have already been completed
Delay estimation until late in the project
Use decomposition techniques to generate project cost and effort estimates
Use one or more empirical models for software cost and effort estimation

3. Decomposition Techniques
LOC FP

4. Project Types ORGANIC Routine project
Well understood application Program
Team size reasonably small & Experienced
Project expected to run smoothly
Typically a smaller system

5. Project Types............ Semi-Detached In the middle
Complex system, but something the company is familiar with
Teams may be made up of experienced and inexperienced members
System not huge, but not small either

6. Project Types................. Embedded Difficulties expected
Project that is hard (control software for a nuclear plant, or spacecraft)
Team has little experience in domain
New or inexperienced team
Tend to be large projects with lots of constraints

7. Empirical estimation models
COCOMO (Constructive Cost Estimation Model) was proposed by Boehm [1981].
According to Boehm, software cost estimation should be done through three stages:
Basic COCOMO
Intermediate COCOMO
Complete COCOMO.

8. Basic COCOMO model
The basic COCOMO model gives an approximate estimate of the project parameters. The basic COCOMO estimation model is given by the following expressions:
Effort = a1 х (KLOC)a2 PM
Tdev = b1 x (Effort)b2 Months
Where
KLOC is the estimated size of the software product expressed in Kilo Lines of Code,
a1, a2, b1, b2 are constants for each category of software products,
Tdev is the estimated time to develop the software, expressed in months,
Effort is the total effort required to develop the software product, expressed in person months (PMs).

9. Estimation of development effort
Organic : Effort = 2.4(KLOC)^1.05 PM
Semi-detached : Effort = 3.0(KLOC)^1.12 PM
Embedded : Effort = 3.6(KLOC)^1.20 PM

10. Estimation of development time
Organic : Tdev = 2.5(Effort)^0.38 Months
Semi-detached : Tdev = 2.5(Effort)^0.35 Months
Embedded : Tdev = 2.5(Effort)^0.32 Months

11. Example
Assume that the size of an organic type software product has been estimated to be 32,000 lines of source code. Assume that the average salary of software engineers be Rs. 15,000/- per month. Determine the effort required to develop the software product and the nominal development time.
From the basic COCOMO estimation formula for organic software:
Effort = 2.4 х (32)^1.05 = 91 PM
Nominal development time = 2.5 х (91)^0.38 = 14 months
Cost required to develop the product = 14 х 15,000
= Rs. 210,000/-

12. Intermediate COCOMO model
The basic COCOMO model assumes that effort and development time are functions of the product size alone.
To obtain an accurate estimation of the effort and project duration, the effect of all relevant parameters must be taken into account.
The intermediate COCOMO model recognizes this fact and refines the initial estimate obtained using the basic COCOMO expressions by using a set of 15 cost drivers (multipliers) based on various attributes of software development

13. Cost Driver Cost drivers can be classified into following groups
Product attributes
Required software reliability
Size of application database
Complexity of the product
Hardware attributes
Run-time performance constraints
Memory constraints
Volatility of the virtual machine environment
Required turnabout time

14. Project attributes(development environment)
Personnel attributes
Analyst capability
Software engineering capability
Applications experience
Virtual machine experience
Programming language experience
Project attributes(development environment)
Use of software tools (CASE)
Application of software engineering methods
Required development schedule