Why Software Matters in Capital Projects

2011 Joint Conference of the 21st International Workshop on Software Measurement and the 6th International Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement, 2011

To clarify the characteristics of cost-overrun software projects, this paper focuses on the cost to sales ratio of software development, computed from financial information of a midsize software company in the embedded systems domain, and analyzes the correlation with outsourcing ratio as well as code reuse ratio and relative effort ratio per development phase. As a result, we found that a lower cost to sales ratio projects had the higher relative effort ratio in the external design phase, which indicates that spending less effort on external design can cause decrease of profit. We also found that high outsourcing ratio projects had a higher cost to sales ratio, and that projects having a moderate code reuse ratio had a lower and disperse cost to sales ratio, which suggests that troubles in code reuse can damage the profit of a project.

Journal of Digital Asset Management, 2005

2009

Software Project Management has always been considered as a Herculean task for organizations and enterprises with limited or insufficient technical expertise and resources. The difference contradiction between business and engineering conceptions on project definition, management and success, resulted in project failures and catastrophic technological investments and business initiatives. This paper aims to contribute in software project management by identifying a new innovative measurement unit based on which software projects can obtain a volume that will be used throughout a project tracking process integrating business and engineering goals and objectives under a common project success perception. This new project tracking approach can assure financial and operational benefits by minimizing the lack of communication between business and engineering parties involved in the implementation of a software oriented investment or business initiative.

Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2015

Software cost estimation is a main concern of the software industry. However, the fact is also that in today's scenario, software industries are more interested in other issues like new technologies in the market, shorter development time, skill shortage etc. They are actually deviating from critical issues to routine issues. Today, people expect high quality products at very low costs and same is the goal of software engineering. An accuracy in software cost estimation has a direct impact on company's reputation and also affects the software investment decisions. Accurate cost estimation can minimize the unnecessary costs and increase the productivity and efficiency of the company. The objective of this paper is to identify the existing methods of software cost estimation prevailing in the market and analyzing some of the important factors impacting the software cost estimation process. In order to achieve the objective, a survey was conducted to find out: • Nature of projects that companies prefer. • Impact of training on employees in software cost estimation. • How many people review the estimated cost? • How much risk buffer the company keeps for future prospects?

Information and Software Technology, 1992

The paper gives an overview of the state of the art of software cost estimation (SCE). The main questions to be answered in the paper are: (I) What are the reasons for overruns of budgets and planned durations? What are the prerequisites for estimating? (3) How can software development effort be estimated? (4) What can software project management expect from SCE models, how accurate are estimations which are made using these kind of models, and what are the pros and cons of cost estimation models? software, cost estimation, project control, software cost estimation model

International Journal of Computer Applications, 2017

Software cost estimation (SCE) is a process of predicting efforts and costs in terms of money, time and staff for each software. One of the problems with estimating software costs is the evaluation of estimation models. Practitioners have been concerned to appreciate for their inability the costs associated with software development accurately. This concern has become more urgent as the problems associated with development costs continue to increase. Consequently, considerable research attention is now directed to provide a complete understanding of the software development process and the preparation and evaluation of software cost estimating tools. Many estimation models have been proposed in the last twenty to thirty years. Many software companies track and analyse project performance by measuring the accuracy of cost estimation. A number of measures are reported in the literature, but have deficiencies. There is no widely accepted standard for assessing estimation models and existing measures are sometimes inconsistent

IOP conference series, 2018

Context: This study discusses the priority of cost required in software development projects. Objectives: To show the costing models, the variables involved, and how practitioners assess and decide the priorities of each variable. To strengthen the information, each variable also confirmed the risk if ignored. Method: The method is done by two approaches. First, systematic literature reviews to find the models and variables used to decide the cost of software development. Second, confirm and take judgments about the level of importance and risk of each variable to the software developer. Result: Obtained about 54 variables that appear on the 10 models discussed. The variables are categorized into 15 groups based on the similarity of meaning. Each group becomes a variable. Confirmation results with practitioners on the level of importance and risk. It shown there are two variables that are considered very important and high risk if ignored. That is duration and effort. Conclusion: The relationship of variable rates between the results of literature studies and confirmation of practitioners contributes to the use of software business actors in considering project cost variables.

Information and Software Technology, 2000

Regular outsourcing of software development signifies a need for a common understanding between procurement specialists, project managers and software engineers of individual system requirements costs, to facilitate accord on price. Dependable cost estimates are usually required by customers long before detailed analysis and design activities would normally produce this information. A number of estimation techniques have evolved to produce cost information at an early stage in the software life-cycle, however estimation continues to contribute to budget blowouts. Contemporary techniques for costing specifications described as use cases are increasingly challenged as the size and complexity of the system expands. In addition object-oriented representations of requirements fail to directly map into structures used by project managers, leading to ongoing comparisons of value that are subjective and often unrepresentative of final project expenditure. Flaws in the current application of cost estimation methodologies have been identified and a possible solution is proposed.

2004

Software metrics should support managerial decision making in software projects. We explain how traditional metrics approaches, such as regression-based models for cost estimation fall short of this goal. Instead, we describe a causal model (using a Bayesian network) which incorporates empirical data, but allows it to be interpreted and supplemented using expert judgement. We show how this causal model is used in a practical decision-support tool, allowing a project manager to trade-off the resources used against the outputs (delivered functionality, quality achieved) in a software project. The model and toolset have evolved in a number of collaborative projects and hence capture significant commercial input. Extensive validation trials are taking place among partners on the EC funded project MODIST (this includes Philips, Israel Aircraft Industries and QinetiQ) and the feedback so far has been very good. The estimates are sensible and the causal modelling approach enables decision-makers to reason in a way that is not possible with other project management and resource estimation tools. To ensure wide dissemination and validation a version of the toolset with the full underlying model is being made available for free to researchers.

Communications of the ACM, 1987

Practitioners have expressed concern over their inability to accurately estimate costs associated with software development. This concern has become even more pressing as costs associated with development continue to increase. As a result, considerable research attention is now directed at gaining a better understanding of the software-development process as well as constructing and evaluating software cost estimating tools. This paper evaluates four of the most popular algorithmic models used to estimate software costs [SLIM, COCOMO, Function Points, and ESTIMACS). Data on 15 large completed business dataprocessing projects were collected and used to test the accuracy of the models' ex post effort estimation. One important result was that Albrecht's Function Points effort estimation model was validated by the independent data provided in this study [3]. The models not developed in business data-processing environments showed significant need for calibration. As models of the software-development process, all of the models tested failed to sufficiently reflect the underlying factors affecting productivity. Further research will be required to develop understanding in this area.

2000

The SA-CMM is based on the expectation that a mature organization and its project managers will do a thorough job of planning software acquisitions. Each key process area within the SA-CMM addresses a project management process that must take place as an adjunct to planning and managing the software acquisition project. This requires the allocation of resources to plan and oversee the acquisition activities. While software project cost estimation tools are becoming more precise in their ability to predict the costs associated with software production, few address the costs associated with acquisition planning, oversight and management. Such costs are considered "hidden."

Journal of Management Information Systems, 1998

He received his Ph.D. in computer infonnation systems from the University of Miami, Florida. Dr. Hu currently teaches information systems, database management, and data communications courses. His research Interests include software engineering, economics of information technology, IT outsourcing, and electronic commerce. He has published articles in such journals as

2004

Key procurement challenges include the definition of value and the identification of Value for Money principles. In the case of software development, the failure of contemporary systems of costing and project management to create reliable, replicable cost estimation that links to the requirements of project planners and managers represents a significant deficiency in procurement theory and practice. This paper explores the covert problems of software development procurement and its multi-disciplinary facets to arrive at a theoretical structure and methodology for estimating costs and value within unique software development procurement proposals. The methodology aims to provide a conceptual link between competing professional disciplines within a multi-disciplinary evaluation model.