Practical Software Project Estimation: A Toolkit for Estimating Software Development Effort & Duration [Hardcover]

Peter Hill (Author), International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0071717919 | ISBN-13: 978-0071717915 | Edition: 1

Product verifiable, defensible, and achievable software estimates

Based on data collected by the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG), Practical Software Project Estimation explains how to accurately forecast the size, cost, and schedule of software projects. Get expert advice on generating accurate estimates, minimizing risks, and planning and managing projects. Valuable appendixes provide estimation equations, delivery rate tables, and the ISBSG Repository demographics.

• Verify project objectives and requirements
• Determine, validate, and refine software functional size
• Produce indicative estimates using regression equations
• Predict effect and duration through comparison and analogy
• Build estimation frameworks
• Perform benchmarks using the ISBSG Repository
• Compare IFPUG, COSMIC, and FiSMA sizing methods

Peter Hill is the chief executive officer and a director of the ISBSG. He has been in the information services industry for more than 40 years and has compiled and edited five books for the ISBSG.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The ISBSG is a not-for-profit organization that established and now grows, maintains, and exploits two repositories of IT history data to help improve the management of IT globally.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (September 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071717919
• ISBN-13: 978-0071717915
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #692,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for all project managers and software estimation professionals - Great value for money, October 13, 2010

By 

Harold van Heeringen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practical Software Project Estimation: A Toolkit for Estimating Software Development Effort & Duration (Hardcover)

I just finished reading the book and I was really impressed with the practical value that is given. Of course I know that the main reason that software projects fail is because of the fact that they are estimated in an optimistic way, usually relying on nothing more than an 'experts' opinion. This book will help any project manager or other project stakeholder to estimate a project in a realistic way, therefore reducing the risk of failure enormously.

The book explains the art of macro software estimation, based on sound theoretical models combined with the incredible power of the repositories of real data submitted by best-in-class companies from all over the globe. The book explains how to use these models and how to use the data. A large number of software estimation equations are given, just like that. Usually cost engineers and parametric analysts would have to study the data for a long time before deriving the equations. The appendices give some great insight into the cost drivers of software projects, listing for instance productivity figures (and distribution!!) per programming language, development platform, industry type, application type, team size, architecture, etc.

Therefore I consider this book to be a great value-for-money. In my opinion anyone who is involved in the estimation of projects should have a copy of this book.

Some of the topics addressed:

- The main factors that influence productivity

- Accuracy of Software estimation methods

- Identifying the completeness of the requirements

- Estimating using equations

- Estimating using comparison

- Estimating using analogy

- Estimating agile projects

- How to use the ISBSG repository data

- Benchmarking the projects

- The impact of team size on productivity

- The impact of duration on productivity

- etc !!