Model of software effort and productivity

Abstract

A new model of software effort and productivity is described, wherein the estimated productivity of an organization is equal to the average productivity modified by a function of the cost factors. Techniques for generating the cost multiplier associated with each cost factor are shown, and equations are derived for calculating the effect of combinations of cost factors. A key characteristic of the model is its ability to amortize the cost of a factor over the projects that may be affected by the factor; thus the model allows assessment of the cost of reuse. The quality of the model is evaluated by examining its predictive accuracy. It is shown that on a test set of object-oriented projects where size is measured by number of objects and methods, the new model shows greater promise than COCOMO and Ada-COCOMO.