Using The Size of Classes and Methods as the Basis for Early Effort Prediction; Empirical Observations, Initial Application; A Practitioners Experience Report

Early practical experience, based upon empirical observations strongly indicates that using classes as the basis for effort estimation, can help to achieve DeMarco's holy grail. In providing evidence for this claim this position paper will describe (i) empirical size observations; (ii) estimations processes, based upon these observations; and (iii) initial experiences using these processes. This paper will conclude with lessons learned and further work to be done. 1 Introduction There is a Holy Grail in project estimating. The target that every worthy project manager tries to hit has been set by Tom DeMarco. It is to know at the 10 percent stage, how much you will have spent at the 100 percent stage to within 10 percent. In other words, by the time your are one-tenth through, you should know how much the finished project will have cost, and you should be right to within 10 percent [6] Early practical experience, based upon empirical observations strongly indicates that using classes a..