Introduction to Software Cost Estimation
Every software project undertaken has to be planned in terms of cost, development time, resource requirements, project scheduling, the size of estimation, etc. In this blog, we will discuss software cost estimation. Cost estimation is an approximate judgment of the cost for the project. The cost estimation System is measured in terms of the person's effort. The different development environments will determine which variables are included in the cost value. Different types of costs included are:
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management costs - refers to costs, losses, and budget.
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development costs - training costs, Quality Assurance.
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resources - refers to the source of supply.
Software cost estimation will never be estimated accurately because there are too many variables, including
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Human variables.
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Technical variables.
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Environmental variables.
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Political variables.
Software development includes tasks with complexities that are difficult to judge.
In brief, software cost estimation answers the question of how much time it will cost to develop software and the relationship between cost and development time.
Software Cost Estimation Affects
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Planning and budgeting - resource prioritisation changes, scheduling of projects, and resource allocation vary.
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Project management differs.
A software estimator is a person who is responsible for the implementation of the project; he compares the previous project in the organisation to the current project; he is usually experienced from outside the organisation and provide an unbiased estimate. He does the following task
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establishment of plans
So that he can work accordingly.
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Do cost estimation for initial requirements.
Once calculated, the initial requirements' cost helps in pre-analysis and saves time and money.
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Use several methods for cost estimation.
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Do re-estimates during the life cycle.
This helps in making less errors.
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Make any required changes to development.
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To find an assessment of cost estimation at the end of the project.
There are two types of estimation models: static model and dynamic model. A parameter value is already given in a static cost estimation model, and the target value is obtained based on this parameter value. We will be discussing static models in detail below:
Static, Single Variable Models
A single parameter value is given in input in a static single-variable model. The cost is estimated based on the relationship given with the given parameter value. Output can be cost or maybe time or effort.
The basic formula is given by:
C=a*(L^b) where,
C stands for software cost estimation.
L stands for the lines of code.
a and b is equal to the constant derived from past experience.
Similarly, by using the same formula, we can calculate the effort, documentation and duration.
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