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Cost Estimation

Cost Estimation. What is estimated? resources (humans, components, tools) cost (person-months) schedule (months) Why? Personnel allocation Contract bids Go/No-Go decisions Make vs Buy decisions. Dimensions. “Men do not equal months” (Brooks) Consider calendar time vs number of people

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Cost Estimation

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  1. Cost Estimation • What is estimated? • resources (humans, components, tools) • cost (person-months) • schedule (months) • Why? • Personnel allocation • Contract bids • Go/No-Go decisions • Make vs Buy decisions

  2. Dimensions • “Men do not equal months” (Brooks) • Consider • calendar time vs number of people • total effort vs number of people • total effort vs calendar time allowed? • “Adding people to a late project usually makes it later” (Brooks) • Note: people requirements usually uneven

  3. Software pricing factors

  4. Difficulties • Difficulties • “outside” pressure • lack of historical info • poor specifications • moving target • unstable environment • “a software cost estimation approach is doing well if it can estimate costs within 20%, 70% of the time, on its own turf” - Boehm 1981

  5. Risks • Cost of under estimation • lose $$ • pressure/stress/hangovers/domino • Cost of over estimation • tie up resources • miss out on other projects • Cost of no estimation • no historical data or experience is gained

  6. Preparation • Determine Scope - function - performance - constraints - interfaces - reliability • Determine (estimate) resources - people - software - environment • Reliable historical information

  7. Methods • Reality? • Parkinson’s Law • Pricing to win • Expert judgment by analogy • Decomposition • Delphi • Algorithmic Models …

  8. Algorithmic Models • Simple formulas • usually a function of size estimate • Allows calibration • GIGO • Outputs vary, even within a model - effort - time - stages • COCOMO in 1981 was the classic model

  9. Constructive Cost Model, B. Boehm, 1981 • Basic Model • Estimate KDSI • Select product's Development Mode (straightforward, embedded, etc.) • Calculate Person-Months as F(KDSI, DM) • Calculate Dev. Time as F(PM, DM) • Intermediate • Rank project and process on 15 categories (reliability, programmer's capabilities) to obtain ‘effort multipliers’ • Can analyze tradeoffs • Advanced - Involves subsystems and subtasks.

  10. COCOMO 81 Basic

  11. COCOMO 81 Intermediate Take the nominal effort and multiply by 15 effort multipliers:

  12. Lines of code • What's a line of code? • The measure was first proposed when programs were typed on cards with one line per card. • How does this correspond to statements as in Java which can span several lines or where there can be several statements on one line? • Do you include comments, data declarations, library modules? • Is this really what you want to base “productivity” on?

  13. Function points • Includes external inputs/outputs, user interactions, external interfaces, files used by the system • Function point count modified by complexity of the project • FPs can be used to estimate LOC depending on the average number of LOC per FP for a given language • LOC = AVC * number of function points • AVC is a language-dependent factor varying from 200-300 for assemble language to 2-40 for a 4GL • FPs are very subjective. They depend on the estimator. • Automatic function-point counting is impossible

  14. Object points • Object points are an alternative function-related measure to function points when 4Gls or similar languages are used for development • Object points are NOT the same as object classes • The number of object points in a program is a weighted estimate of • The number of separate screens that are displayed • The number of reports that are produced by the system • The number of 3GL modules that must be developed to supplement the 4GL code

  15. Object point estimation • Object points are easier to estimate from a specification than function points as they are simply concerned with screens, reports and 3GL modules • They can therefore be estimated at an early point in the development process. At this stage, it is very difficult to estimate the number of lines of code in a system

  16. COCOMO II (1996) • Hierarchy • analysis stage model • design stage model • post architecture model • Sizing options • LOC • function points • object points (don’t worry about this)

  17. COCOMO 2 levels • COCOMO 2 is a 3 level model that allows increasingly detailed estimates to be prepared as development progresses • Early prototyping level • Estimates based on object points and a simple formula is used for effort estimation • Early design level • Estimates based on function points that are then translated to LOC • Post-architecture level • Estimates based on lines of source code

  18. Estimate uncertainty

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