Question

in software measurement

why estimation value should be range ?how related this to empirical method ..

Answer 1

      Software development processes are split into a number of separate activities. Cost estimation of software development project focuses on how associating estimates of effort and time with the project activities. Productivity estimates help to define the project cost and schedule. In a software development project managers may be faced with the problem of estimating the productivity of software engineers. For any software problem, there may be many different solutions, each of which has different attributes. One solution may execute more efficiently while another may be more readable and easier to maintain and comparing their production rates is very difficult.

There are 5 methods in project cost prediction:

1) Algorithmic cost modelling

              Relating some software metric a mathematical model is developed to estimate the project cost.

    2) Expert judgement

              Several experts on the proposed software development techniques and the application domain are asked to estimate the project cost. The estimation process iterates until an agreed estimate is reached.

    3) Estimation by previous projects ( empirical method )

             The cost of a new project is estimated by a completed project in the same application domain.

    4) Application of Parkinson’s Law

            Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available and the cost is determined by the resources used.

    5) Pricing to win

            The software cost is estimated by the price what the customer has available to spend on the project.

In all this project pricing approaches, you cannot fix a single cost, because all features in a project development is dynamic.

There will be an expected low and high expences in a project. A software product is like a real product, All the real world problems will effect the software product. If a developer changed the company without completing his part in that project it will take extra time for the new developer to get at the maximum speed. This is just an example. Just like this there will be many dynamic factors which we cannot expect at the cost calculation of the project