The Canadian aerospace industry faces many challenges. One of them is the difficulty in estimating costs. In particular, the design effort required in a project impacts resource requirements and lead-time, and consequently the final cost. This paper presents the findings of a case study conducted for recognized global leader in the design and manufacturing of aircraft engines. The study models ...

In this paper we study the effects of a change from the traditional request “How much effort is required to complete X?” to the alternative “How much can be completed in Y workhours?”. Studies 1 and 2 report that software professionals receiving the alternative format provided much lower, and presumably more optimistic, effort estimates of the same software development work than those receiving...

OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE DOCUMENTS a tendency toward cost and effort overruns in software projects. On average, this overrun seems to be around 30 percent.1 Furthermore, comparing the estimation accuracy of the 1980s with that reported in more recent surveys suggests that the estimation accuracy hasn’t changed much since then. (The only analyses that suggest a strong improvement in estimation accu...

This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in software resource estimation. We describe common estimation methods and also provide an evaluation framework to systematically compare and assess alternative estimation methods. Though we have tried to be as precise and objective as possible, it is inevitable that such a comparison exercise be somewhat subjective. We howeve...

In this paper we discuss estimation of efforts needed to update programs according to a given requirement change. In the Object-Oriented prototyping development(shortly the OO prototyping), the requirement changes occur frequently and regularly. Thus a simple and fast estimation of efforts is strongly required by both developers and managers. However, existing estimation methods cannot be appli...

This paper outlines a four step effort estimation study and focuses on the first and second step. The four steps are formulated to successively introduce a more formal effort experience base. The objective of the study is to evaluate the needed formalism to improve effort estimation and to study different approaches to record and reuse experiences from effort planning in software projects. In t...

Context: Software development effort estimates are often inaccurate, and this inaccuracy cause problems for the clients as well as the providers. Consequently, we need more knowledge about the estimation processes, so that we can improve them. Objective: This study investigates how initial judgment-based estimation of work effort in software development affects subsequent, unrelated estimation ...

in this paper an efficient three- stage algorithm is developed for software production cost and time estimation. first stage includes a hybrid model composed of cocomo and function points methods to increase estimation accuracy. second stage encompasses paired comparisons matrix of analytical hierarchy process to determine amount of any resources consumed in each step of software production by ...

Background: Many comparative studies have been performed on effort estimation models. Linear regression (LR) and Estimation by Analogy (EbA) were often compared. The past research revealed that those comparative studies reported inconsistent results among performance measures. However, those studies seemed not to reflect actual or desirable study procedure. Aim: We aimed to examine performance ...