Chapter 7. Cost Estimation
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
To appreciate the use of quantitative, objective approaches to software cost estimation
To have insight into the factors that affect software development productivity
To understand well-known techniques for estimating software cost and effort
To understand techniques for relating effort to development time
Note
Software development takes time and money. When commissioning a building project, you expect a reliable estimate of the cost and development time up front. Getting reliable cost and schedule estimates for software development projects is still largely a dream. Software development costs are notoriously difficult to estimate reliably at an early stage. Since progress is difficult to 'see' – just when is a piece of software 50% complete? – schedule slippages often go undetected for quite a while and schedule overruns are the rule, rather than the exception. In this chapter, we look at various ways to estimate software cost and schedule.
When commissioning someone to build a house, decorate a bathroom, or lay out a garden, we expect a precise estimate of the costs to be incurred before the operation is started. A gardener is capable of giving a rough indication of the cost on the basis of, say, the area of land, the desired size of the terrace or grass area, whether or not a pond is required, and similar information. The estimate can be made more precise in further dialog, before the first bit of earth is turned. If you expect similar ...
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