Chapter 4: Cost Estimation

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OVERVIEW

Key Points

Using metrics to enable cost and duration estimation

Basic principles of estimation

Using historical data that you may not even know you have

Estimating models and how they work

While many people see traditional Software Metrics as the provision of management information, it is the area of estimating, and especially estimating the cost of software development or enhancement projects, that has received the most attention over the years. Given the amount of work that has been done in this area and a history of over twenty years for commercial IT, it is somewhat surprising that the industry has such a terrible, and often well-deserved, reputation for poor cost estimation. Basically, we still cannot get it right! Even if a project is delivered "on time" the amount of functionality that is delivered on that date is often a drastic reduction over what was "contracted" to be delivered.

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