Software Estimation Techniques

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Course Overview

Effective software development estimates reduce the risks of increased development costs, late delivery and missed features and functionality. Throughout this course, you develop your estimation skills, implement new processes and use proven techniques to estimate software projects. You learn to estimate the size, cost, effort and schedule of a project, and improve estimate accuracy.

Audience

This course is valuable for anyone who works on software projects, from individual developers to project managers who need to create estimates or establish an estimation process in their organisation.

Skills Gained

• Prepare a software project estimate through an iterative process
• Develop an initial estimate using the expert judgement method
• Apply historical data for greater precision in an estimate
• Refine the size or scope estimate using a component-based method
• Perform Function Point calculations to determine the magnitude of a project
• Translate a size or scope estimate into a time, schedule and cost estimate

Course Outline

The Art of Software Estimation

What is estimation?

• Size and scope
• Effort
• Time
• Schedule
• Cost

Elements of an estimate

• Source Lines of Code (SLOC) and Function Points (FP)
• Effort and efficiency metrics

Establishing the estimation process

• Balancing exactness and predictions
• Iterating for greater precision

Defining the software environment

• Identifying the software project phases: define, design, code, test and implement
• Considering varying software development methodologies
• Factoring in the development environment: programming language, skill levels and resources

Delivering Expert Judgement Estimates

Analysing project documents

• Determining information gaps
• Identifying assumptions, constraints and risks

Acquiring expert perspectives

• Conducting an interview with an expert
• Asking clarifying questions
• Incorporating the information into estimates

Developing the estimate

• Choosing the units of measure (SLOC, FP)
• Evaluating your confidence in the estimate

Calibrating Estimates with Historical Data

Analysing historical data

• Evaluating similarities and differences between current and previous projects
• Extracting relevant metrics from historical data

Refining the initial estimate

• Calculating the estimate using appropriate measures
• Incorporating all software life cycle activities in the estimate
• Checking your estimate against historical data

Fine Tuning with Component Methods

Interpreting the work breakdown structure (WBS)

• Identifying the elemental components
• Recognising omissions in the WBS

Evaluating components and activities

• Choosing estimation metrics and applying them systematically
• Consulting with team members
• Eliciting single-point estimates
• Performing the PERT (three-point) methodology

Pulling it all together

• Adding up the component estimate
• Factoring in project complexities
• Comparing with the previous iterations
• Assessing risks and contingencies in the project

Estimating Projects with Function Points

Principles of Function Points

• Illustrating Function Point analysis
• Deriving Function Points from the requirements or design
• Defining use case and object points

Applying Function Point analysis to your project

• Counting Function Points: External inputs and outputs, queries, data sections
• Interpreting the size of the project using FP

Developing Effective Time, Schedule and Cost Estimates

Estimating productivity

• Deriving common conversion metrics
• Determining productivity metrics from historical data

Calculating time and cost

• Applying productivity metrics to the project
• Building a schedule and producing a time estimate
• Producing the project cost estimate

Communicating the estimate to management

• Documenting the estimate according to the size and complexity of the project
• Presenting and defending the estimate

Software Estimation Techniques / 930