"Cost Estimation in Software Development Projects" Please respond to the following:
Predict the challenges of cost estimation for software development projects where requirements are usually not clear in early stages of the project.
Argue whether or not the fluidity of requirements introduced by agile methodologies contributes to such challenges using three (3) pieces of evidence as support for your argument.
Classmates:
Software cost estimation process face many difficulties to get a proper and accurate estimate for many reasons, since software is something intangible, rather than the estimation process in nature is not easy especially with intangible products, dealing with software estimation is completely different from any another estimation process in any fields.
One of the main difficulties in the software cost estimation process is the availability of data which is needed to verify the correctness of any suggested models, metrics and functional sizing techniques, many of the models and sizing techniques proposed based on a small amount of data, some models for example compute the size and estimates the cost based on 30 UML files, so the resulted model in this case doesn't has a high reliability and cant be generalized so it cant be applied in any development environment, even the data is very sensitive since one sizing techniques may produce a good estimate in X software development company which reside in X country but cant gain same correctness rate in Y software development company in Y country.
Agile methods, which represent an emerging set of software development methodologies based on the concepts of adaptability and flexibility, are currently touted as a way to alleviate these reoccurring problems and pave the way for the future of development. The estimation in Agile Software Development methods depends on an expert opinion and historical data of project for estimation of cost, size, effort and duration.
In most of the cases cost estimation is heavily affected by requirement changes, score changes and timeline changes in light of this changing environment project managers and Business Development managers have come up with this solution to these problems which are affecting cost estimation, most of these changes be it requirement scope or timeline can be effectively handled by using agile methodologies. In absence of the historical data and experts the previous method like analogy and planning poker are not useful.
Using agile methodologies project manager and business development manager is more equipped to comprehend ever- changing business environment and requirements in more effective and manageable manner the implication of the finding can be agile methodologies provider a way for project manager and business development manager you have a very accurate cost estimation.