Software Cost Estimation, Benchmarking, and Risk Assessment - Trendowicz, Adam

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Résumé :
Software effort estimation is a key element of software project planning and management. Yet, in industrial practice, the important role of effort estimation is often underestimated and/or misunderstood. In this book, Adam Trendowicz presents the CoBRA method ?(an abbreviation for Cost Estimation, Benchmarking, and Risk Assessment) for estimating the effort required to successfully complete a software development project, which uniquely combines human judgment and measurement data in order to systematically create a custom-specific effort estimation model. CoBRA goes far beyond simply predicting the development effort; it supports project decision-makers in negotiating the project scope, managing project risks, benchmarking productivity, and directing improvement activities. To illustrate the method?s practical use, the book reports several real-world cases where CoBRA was applied in various industrial contexts. These cases represent different estimation contexts in terms of software project environment, estimation objectives, and estimation constraints. This book is the result of a successful collaboration between the process management division of Fraunhofer IESE and many software companies in the field of software engineering technology transfer. It mainly addresses software practitioners who deal with planning and managing software development projects as part of their daily work, and is also of interest for students or courses specializing in software engineering or software project management.

Biographie:
Adam Trendowicz is a senior consultant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern, Germany, where he leads the Measurement and Prediction team. He has led software cost estimation and software measurement improvement activities in software companies of different sizes and from various fields, and has been involved in functional software size estimation and productivity benchmarking in organizations from both industry and the public sector. Trendowicz's other software engineering interests include project management, software product quality modeling and evaluation, and technology validation by means of empirical methods. Ross Jeffery is an Emeritus Professor of Software Engineering at the UNSW's School of Computer Science and Engineering and a research consultant in the Systems Software Research Group at National ICT Australia (NICTA). His research interests are in software process and product modeling and improvement, software knowledge management, software metrics, software technical and management reviews, and software resource modeling and estimation. His research has involved over fifty government and industry organizations over a period of more than 20 years and has been funded by the industry, government and universities. Jeffery was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contributions to software engineering research....

Sommaire:
Part I Predictable Software Development.-Why Software Effort Estimation?.- What is a Good Estimate?.- Why the CoBRA Method?.- Part II The CoBRA Method.- Principles of the CoBRA Method.- Model Development and Validation.- Model Application.- Usage Scenarios of a CoBRA Model.- Part III Industrial Applications.- Software design & management, Germany.- Allette Systems, Australia.- Oki Electric, Japan.- Siemens Information Systems, India.- Japan Manned Space Systems, Japan.- Bibliography.

The CoBRA method is a way of integrating the Art and the Science of software estimation, which is usually believed to be a Black Art. The CoBRA method demystifies the Black Art of software estimation. Yasushi Ishigai, Research Director at Research Center for Information Technology, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., Japan ? We had not been able to imagine building our own software estimation models until we encountered the CoBRA method. As far as combining project data and expert judgment for the purpose of software effort estimation is concerned, we can definitely say that there are no other methods that are comparable to CoBRA. Morihiko Shinoda, Deputy Department Manager, Yutaka Masaoka, Senior Engineer, Government, Public Sector Systems Division, Hitachi Solutions, Ltd., Japan We used the CoBRA method for early-stage estimation of system integration projects. We were very satisfied with CoBRA because we could easily model relevant cost drivers that are specific to our own context as well as base development productivity. From limited use in one group, we have now expanded its use to department-wide activities. Yasushi Aizaki, Manager at Systems Development Division, NTT Data Sekisui Systems, Japan I am convinced that the CoBRA method has a high potential of resolving acquisition issues related to the accountability of software costs in IT business, which enduringly persist on the side of IT customers. That's because the models are very simple and easy to build and can be understood even by non-IT professionals. Hiroshi Iwakiri, General Manager, Information Systems Business Unit, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation