A study of information systems managers and other information systems professionals at 112 different organizations confirmed that information systems software cost estimating is an important concern. Subjects reported the completion of only one of every four systems development projects within their estimates. According to them, the major cause of inaccurate estimates was changes in user requirements. Organizations using sophisticated cost estimating software packages were less successful at preventing large cost overruns than organizations not using them. However, the use of the estimator as system developer, the careful monitoring of systems development projects, and the inclusion in performance evaluations of success in meeting estimates were associated with more accurate cost estimating.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlbrechtA.J. (1979). Measuring application development productivity. GUIDE/SHARE Application Development Symposium Proceedings, October, pp. 83–92.
2.
AronJ.D. (1976). Estimating resources for large programming systems, in Software Engineering: Concepts and Techniques) Proceedings of the NATO Conferences, NaurP., RandellB., and BuxtonJ.N. (Petrocelli/Charter 1976, New York, NY) (Litton Educational Publishing, Inc.)
3.
BankerR., and KemererK. (1989). Scale economies in new software development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 15(10), 1199–1205.
4.
BenbasatI., and VesseyI. (1980). Programmer and analyst time/cost estimation. MIS Quarterly, 4(2), 30–43.
5.
BenjaminR.I., RockartJ.F., Scott MortonM.S., and WymanJ. (1984). Information technology: A strategic opportunity. Sloan Management Review, 25(3), 3–10.
BoehmB.W., and PapaccioP.N. (1986). Understanding and controlling software costs. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 14(10), 1462–1477.
9.
Businessweek (1988). If s late costly, incompetent – But try firing a computer system. November 7, Issue 3078, 164–165.
10.
Computer Associates (1987). CA-ESTIMACS: An Application Development Project Estimation Systems (Computer Associates, Mt Laurel, NJ).
11.
ConteS.D., DunsmoreH.E., and ShenV.Y. (1986). SoftwareEngineering Metrics and Models (Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company Inc., Menlo Park, CA).
12.
CourseyD. (1987). Level five's new tool figures software cost. MIS Week, 8, April 20.
13.
CuelenaereA.M.E., van GenuchtenM.J.I.M., and HeemstraF.J. (1987). Calibrating a software cost estimation model: why and how. Information and Software Technology, 29(10), 358–367.
14.
Datapro Research Corp., (1988a). Datapro Directory of Microcomputer Software (Datapro Research Corp., Delran NJ).
15.
Datapro Research Corp. (1988b). Datapro Directory of Software (Datapro Research Corp., Delran NJ).
16.
DemarcoT. (1982). The estimating dilemma. Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement and Estimation (Yourdon Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).
17.
DemarcoT. (1984). An algorithm for sizing software products. Performance Evaluation Review, 12(2), 13–22.
18.
DonelsonW.S. (1976). Project planning and control. Datamation, 22, June, pp. 73–80.
19.
EmeryJ.C. (1971). Cost/Benefit Analysis of Information Systems (The Society for Information Management, Chicago, IL).
20.
FordR.N. (1973). Job enrichment lessons from AT&T. Harvard Business Review, 51(1), 96–106.
21.
FreimanF.R., and ParkR.D. (1979). PRICE software model–version 3; an overview, in Proceedings of IEEE-PINY workshop on Quantitative Software Models, IEEE Cat. TH0067-9, October, pp. 32–41.
22.
HalsteadM.H. (1977). Elements of Software Science (Elsevier North Holland, New York).
23.
HerdJ.R., PostakJ.N., RussellW.E., and StuartK.R. (1977). Software Cost Estimation Study – Study Results.Doty Associates, Inc., Rockville, MD, Final Technical Report RADC-TR-77-220, Vol. 1 (of two), June.
24.
JensenR.W. (1983). An improved macrolevel software development resource estimation model, in Preoceedings of the 5th ISPA Conference, April, pp. 384–389.
25.
JonesT.C. (1986). Programming Productivity (McGraw Hill, NY).
26.
KemererC. (1987). An empirical validation of software cost estimation models. Communications of the ACM, 30(5), 416–429.
27.
KingJ.L., and SchremsE.L. (1978). Cost-benefit analysis in information system development and operation. Computing Surveys, 10, 19–34.
28.
KohlerW. (1929). Gestalt psychology (H. Liveright, New York). Kitchenham, B. and Taylor, N.R. (1985) Software project development cost estimation. Journal of Systems and Software, 5(4), 267–278.
LedererA.L., MiraniR., NeoB.S., PollardC., PrasadJ., and RamamurthyK. (1990). Information system cost estimating: A management perspective. MIS Quarterly, 14(2), 159–178.
31.
LowG.C., and JeffreyD.R. (1990). Functions points in the estimation and evaluation of the software process. IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering, 16(1), 64–71.
32.
MartinR. (1988). Evaluation of current software costing tools. Software Engineering Notes, 13(3), 49–51.
33.
McCabeT.J. (1976). A complexity measure. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.SE-2(4), 308–320.
34.
MiyazakiY., and MoriK. (1965). COCOMO evaluation and tailoring, in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Engineering of the IEEE, pp. 292–299.
35.
MocklerR.J. (1972). The Management Process (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).
36.
MohantyS.N. (1981). Software cost estimation: Present and future. Software – Practice and Exterience, 11, 103–121.
37.
NelsonE. A. (1966). Management Handbook for the Estimation of Computer Programming Costs.System Development Corporation, AD-A648750, October 31.
38.
NewmanW.H. (1975). Constructive Control (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).
39.
PutnamL.H. (1978). A general empirical solution to the macro software sizing and estimating problem. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, SE-4(4) July, pp. 3456–361.
40.
RubinH.A. (1983). Macro-estimation of software development parameters: The ESTIMACS system document CH1919-0/83/0000/0109 (The Computer Society of the IEEE, Washington DC).
41.
StraubD.W. (1989). Validating instruments in MIS research. MIS Quarterly, 13(2), 147–169.
42.
TateG., and VernerJ.M. (1990). Software sizing and costing models: a survey of empirical validation and comparison studies. Journal of Information Technology, 5, 12–26.
43.
VicinanzaS.S., MukhopadhyayT., and PrietulaM.J. (1991). Software Effort Estimation: An Exploratory Study of Expert Performance. Information Systems Research, 2(4), 243–262.
44.
WalstonC.E., and FelixC.P. (1977). A method of programming measurement and estimation. IBM Systems Journal, 16(1), 54–73.
45.
WolvertonR.W. (1974). The cost of developing large-scale software. IEEE Transactions on Computers, C-23(6), June, 615–636.
