Organizational Strategies and Social Interaction Influence in Software Development Effort Estimation

Abstract

In software development cost estimation, effort allocation is an important and usually challenging task for project management. This paper observes the use of concepts in software effort estimation by analyzing group work with organizational strategies as outgoing practice. The purpose is to improve our understanding of how software professionals raise different types of information when talking, way of thinking and reaching a decision on a software effort estimate. Software effort estimation is a core task regarding planning, budgeting and controlling software development projects. However, providing exact effort estimates is not easy. Estimation work is increasingly group based, and to support it, there is a need to reveal how work practices are carried out as mutual efforts. This paper contributes to an understanding of the role of concepts in group work and of software effort estimation as a specific work practice. In this paper we investigate the estimation practice through a detailed data analytical technique with machine learning approach. Keywords: Effort Estimation, Group work, Interaction, Qualitative Analysis, and Organizational Strategies.