Chapter 19: Special Issues in Estimating Effort

Overview

Applicability of Techniques in This Chapter
	Informal Comparison to Past Projects	Estimation Software Tools	Industry-Average Effort Graphs	ISBSG Method
What's estimated	Effort	Effort	Effort	Effort
Size of project	S M -	S M L	S M -	S M -
Development stage	Early-Middle	Early-Middle	Early	Early
Iterative or sequential	Both	Both	Sequential	Sequential
Accuracy possible	Medium	High	Low-Medium	Low-Medium

Most projects eventually estimate effort directly from a detailed task list. But early in a project, effort estimates are most accurate when computed from size estimates. This chapter describes several means of computing those early estimates.