Incorporating Vital Factors in Agile Estimation through Algorithmic Method

Agile methods have become the mainstream of software development due to their enriched practices. Some commonly used practices include collaborative development, meeting evolving requirements with working software, simple design etc. These methods address the problem of volatile requirements by applying above practices. Thus, these practices reduce cost of change at later stage of software development. These methods do not hold big upfront for early estimation of size, cost and duration due to uncertainty in requirements. It has been observed that agile methods mostly rely on an expert opinion and historical data of project for estimation of cost, size and duration. It has been observed that these methods do not consider the vital factors affecting the cost, size and duration of project for estimation. In absence of historical data and experts, existing agile estimation methods such as analogy, planning poker become unpredictable. Therefore, there is a strong need to devise simple algorithmic method that incorporates the factors affecting the cost, size and duration of project. It also provides the basis for inexperienced practitioners to estimate more precisely. In this paper, we are presenting the study of both traditional and agile estimation methods with equivalence of terms and differences. We investigated some vital factors affecting the estimation of an agile project with scaling factor of low, medium and high. Also, an algorithm Constructive Agile Estimation Algorithm (CAEA) is proposed for incorporating vital factors.