Question

a) Explain the important software cost model parameters. Elaborate on the factors and dimensions on which software economy improvements depend.

b) Write down the software cost/effort estimation formula, naming each variable used in the equation.

Answer 1

Ans a)Software cost model

The software cost model is based on basic five parameter,i.e. Size, Process, Personnel, Environment, and Required quality.

1. Size : The size of the software /product is basically quantified in terms of the numbers of given instructions or reuqirements or the number of days/time require to develop the functions.

2. Process : The environment is made up of the tools and techniques available to support efficient software development and to automate the process. The process is used to produce the product and particularly their abiltiy to avoid non required activities.

3. Personnel: The attributes of this parameter are considered to include the experience level of personnel, programming capability, analysis capability, etc.

4.Environment: It captures the environment development facilities that is available to the developers.

5.Required quality: It is a kind of measure that quantifies the cost of control and the failure cost of control.

Ans b)

For building of any new software it is necessary to know how much it will cost to develop, And the exact time to developtime will it take. These estimates are needed before development is done. Several procedures are being developed and thus have the following attributes in common:-

1. The scope of the project must be established well in advanced.
2. Software metrics are used as a support from which evaluation is made.
3. The project is broken into small PCs which are estimated individually.
4. Achieve its true cost & schedule the estimate as several option arise.
5. Delay estimation.
6. Use symbol decomposition techniques to generate project cost.
7. Acquire the automated estimation tools.