Software Engineering

Project 1 – Estimating Project Effort

Learning Objectives

This project has been designed to re-enforce the following concepts of developing software solutions:

· Requirements Elicitation

· Requirements Analysis

· Functional Decomposition

· Task Identification

· Effort Estimating

In addition, students will be introduced to the reality of quickly developing effort estimates with poor, incomplete and possibly conflicting information.

Scenario

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has invited your company to respond to their Request for Proposal (RFP) regarding the development of a Project Management System. Their requirements are documented in “Project Management System Requirements v3.docx.”

Before dedicating a lot of time and effort developing a proposal, your company wants to determine a ballpark effort for the project.

Your manager has requested that you review the customer’s requirements and provide a “quick and dirty” effort estimate. He will hold meetings to discuss how to develop the effort estimate and the requirements.

You are encouraged to seek your manager’s advice is developing the effort estimate.

NOTE: Your professor will take on the role of your manager.

Deliverables for Project 1

You shall submit via Canvas a document with the following sections containing the information requested.

1. Effort Estimate

Estimate the effort necessary to complete the project. The estimate should be in units of days or weeks. Work showing how the effort estimate was determined is much more important than the actual effort estimate. This work must be well organized and clearly presented.

2. Assumptions

Identify and describe all assumptions made to determine the effort estimate.

The assumptions section shall be formatted in a list and each list element shall be described in a paragraph following the list element.

3. Effort Estimating Method

Describe the method(s) used to determine the effort estimate.

If multiple methods were used, separate subsections should be created for each method.

See the References section in this document for some estimating techniques. Other estimating methods may be used. In either case, the methods must be well described.

4. Advantages/Disadvantages

Identify and describe the advantages and disadvantages of the method(s) used.

This section should be separated into two subsections – the first for advantages of the methodology used to estimate the effort and the second subsection for the disadvantages of the methodology. If multiple methods are used, then separate subsections should be created for each method and the advantages and disadvantages be documented within these subsections.

References

1. Project Estimating Techniques.

Review Chapter 13 section 2 in your textbook “Essentials of Software Engineering” by Frank Tsui, Orlando Karam and Barbara Bernal. The following effort estimating techniques are discussed in this chapter:

· COCOMO

· Function Point

· Simple OO

· Work Breakdown Structure

Your manager may have further insight into successful estimating techniques.

2. RFP from PMI.

Carefully analyze the PMI’s RFP to determine the ballpark effort estimate. This document is the single source of information to determine the scope of the work to be performed. Your manager may be able to clarify the requirements in this document.

Grading

The score for the project shall be determined by how well and how complete you address the four (4) deliverables of this project as defined above (Effort Estimate, Assumptions, Effort Estimating Method, Advantages/Disadvantages).

The following rubric will be used to grade the submissions for Project 1.

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