Estimation of software projects: a practical case
Keywords:
measurements, estimation, planning, software engineering.Abstract
This article describes a methodology to estimate and plan software projects,as well as the experience in the estimation processes. This experience was realized with the participation of undergraduate students of the Software Engineering course at the university of Costa Rica computer science school. This course focuses on software engineering methodologies, techniques and tools and the students implement a practical project. To estimate the duration of their projects, they use the Function Points technique to measure the size of the application. Afterwards they apply different estimation techniques of the duration to plan their projects. The collected information from this investigation shows the certitude of the applied estimation techniques, when comparing the estimated duration against real duration in two important life cycle milestones (the beginning and the end of the project). The described points in this article can interest leaders, professors, and instructors that want to form future software engineers in the area of software project estimation and planning.
PACS: 00, 01
Downloads
References
E. Mills. Software Metrics SEI Curriculum Module SEI–CM–12–1.1, ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/education/cm12.pdf, diciembre 1988.
Roger S. Pressman. Ingenier´ıa de software: un enfoque pr´actico, 6ta edici´on, ISBN 970–10–5473–3. McGraw–Hill, 2005.
William A. Florac and Anita D. Carleton. Measuring the software process: statistical process control for software process improvement , ISBN 0–201–60444–2. Addison–Wesley Professional, 1999.
Stephen H. Kan. Metrics and models in software quality engineering, second edition, ISBN 0–201–72915–6. Adisson wesley, 95–456 (2002).
Garmus and David Herron. Measuring the software process. A practical guide to funcional measurements, ISBN 0–201–69944–3. Addison wesley, 2001.
Richard D. Stutzke. Estimating software—intensive systems, ISBN 0–201–70312– 2. Addison–Wesley Professional, 2005.
R. Lawrie. Using functional sizing in software projects estimating. http://www.charismatek.com, Charismatek software metrics, Australia, 2002.
IEEE. IEEE Software Engineering Standards Collection: 2003 , ISBN 978– 0738137575. Inst of Elect & Electronic, 2003.
Project Management Institute. Guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide), ISBN 1–880410–23–0. Third edition, 2005.
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).


Plagiarism Detection