3 ● COST ESTIMATIONTHE CLASSIC WAY OF ESTIMATING SOFTWARE COSTS IS...

30.3

Cost estimation

The classic way of estimating software costs is to guess a figure, double it and hope forthe best. A better way, often used, is to check whether the organization has carried outa similar project and use the actual figures from that project as a basis for the estimate.Early methods for cost estimation rely on being able to guess the eventual size of thesoftware. The effort is then derived from this figure. The steps are: