Cost estimation

Question 1

how much is development and testing cost?

Answer 1

development-60%
testing- 40%.
Evolution costs often exceed development,

Question 2

what does software cost estimation involve?

Answer 2

predicting the resources required for software development process. Efforts costs must take overheards into account.

Question 3

Explain programmer productivity

Answer 3

measure at the rate of which individual engineers produce software and documentation. Want to measure useful functionality per time unit.q

Question 4

Name some productivity measures

Answer 4

size related measures- based on output such as lines of source code.
function related measures- based on an estimate of the functionality of the delivered software. (Function-points).

Question 5

How is function point count computed?

Answer 5

multiplying each raw count by the weight and summing all values. (with characteristics).

Question 6

What are object points?

Answer 6

alternative function related measure to fuinctions points. not the same as object class. Number of object points is a weighted estimate of: no of seperate screens, no of reports, no of modules.

Question 7

Name some cost estimation techniques

Answer 7

Algorithmic code modelling- formulaic approach based on historial cost information and which is based on size of software
Expert judgement-One or more expers predict software costs. Cheap estimation method. can be accurate. but inaccurate if no experts
Estimation by analogy- comparing the project to a similar project. Accurate if project data availalabe. Impossible if there is no project to compare too.
Parkinsons law- project costs whatever resources are available so no overspend but system is usually finished
Pricing to win- project costs whatever customer has to spend on it. You get the contract but sometimes costs do not accurately reflect the work.

Question 8

What is top down estimation

Answer 8

start at system level and assess through sub systems.

Question 9

what is bottom up estimation

Answer 9

start at component level and estimate effort for each component.

Question 10

What is cost?

Answer 10

estimated as a mathematical function of product, process and process attributes whose values are estimated by project managers. Effort = A x Size^B x M