Software Project Effort Estimation: Foundations and Best Practice Guidelines for Success

Software effort estimation is one of the oldest and most important problems in software project management, and thus today there are a large number of models, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses in general, and even more importantly, in relation to the environment and context in which it is to be applied.

Trendowicz and Jeffery present a comprehensive look at the principles of software effort estimation and support software practitioners in systematically selecting and applying the most suitable effort estimation approach. Their book not only presents what approach to take and how to apply and improve it, but also explains why certain approaches should be used in specific project situations. Moreover, it explains popular estimation methods, summarizes estimation best-practices, and provides guidelines for continuously improving estimation capability. Additionally, the book offers invaluable insights into project management in general, discussing issues including project trade-offs, risk assessment, and organizational learning.

Overall, the authors deliver an essential reference work for software practitioners responsible for software effort estimation and planning in their daily work and who want to improve their estimation skills. At the same time, for lecturers and students the book can serve as the basis of a course in software processes, software estimation, or project management.

Adam Trendowicz is a senior consultant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern, Germany, where he leads the Measurement and Prediction team. He has led software cost estimation and software measurement improvement activities in software companies of different sizes and from various fields, and has been involved in functional software size estimation and productivity benchmarking in organizations from both industry and the public sector. Trendowicz’s other software engineering interests include project management, software product quality modeling and evaluation, and technology validation by means of empirical methods.

Ross Jeffery is an Emeritus Professor of Software Engineering at the UNSW’s School of Computer Science and Engineering and a research consultant in the Systems Software Research Group at National ICT Australia (NICTA). His research interests are in software process and product modeling and improvement, software knowledge management, software metrics, software technical and management reviews, and software resource modeling and estimation. His research has involved over fifty government and industry organizations over a period of more than 20 years and has been funded by the industry, government and universities. Jeffery was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contributions to software engineering research.