Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools, & Techniques

“Murali Chemuturi has written an excellent book that provides a nice overview of both the philosophy and practices of software estimation. In it, he covers the theories and practical realities of estimating software development projects in a simple to read, and easy to understand writing style. Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools, & Techniques provides an excellent summary of various methods of software sizing and covers the pros & cons of each, including an excellent primer on Function Point Analysis. It also includes a very helpful review of Software Size Units, which is the latest way to think about the overall size of a software project taking into account both data and process. SSU seeks to overcome much of the difficulty and ambiguity of trying to count "points" needed for FPA."


—Larry Hanthorn, Director, Delivery Excellence, Microsoft Corporation



About the Item:


Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools, & Techniques covers all facets of software estimation. It provides a detailed explanation of the various methods for estimating software size, development effort, cost, and schedule, including a comprehensive explanation of test effort estimation. Emphasizing that software estimation should be based on well-defined processes, it presents software estimation best practices and shows how to avoid common pitfalls. This guide offers direction on which methods are most appropriate for each of the different project types commonly executed in the software development space and criteria for selecting software estimation tools.


This comprehensive desk reference explains software estimation from scratch to help the beginner and features advanced techniques for more experienced estimators. It details project scheduling, including resource leveling and the concept of productivity, as applicable to software estimators, demonstrating the many benefits of moving from the current macro-productivity approach to a micro-productivity approach in software estimation.





Key Features:



• --Demonstrates a practical methodology with templates for using Delphi estimation and analogy-based estimation for software projects

• --Introduces a new method referred to as software size units (SSU) for measuring software size that does not make use of the untenable concept of “complexity” for adjusting software size

• --Provides useful methods for converting software size to effort, deriving true productivity, and analyzing variances between actual and estimated values as a tool for productivity improvement

• --WAV offers a free downloadable test effort estimation tool (TPPal), a software size unit estimation tool (SSUPal), and a 180-day demo for a comprehensive estimation tool known as EstimatorPal — available from the Web Added Value™ Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com






About the Author:



Murali Chemuturi is an information technology and software development subject matter expert, hands-on programmer, author, consultant and trainer. He has more than 23 years of information technology and software development experience and several years of academic experience teaching a variety of computer & IT courses. In 2001, he formed his own IT consulting, training and software development firm known as Chemuturi Consultants.