Estimation of Software Development Effort from Requirements Based Complexity

Software development effort estimation deals with predicting the effort required to develop quality software. The efficient software development requires accurate estimates, because inappropriate estimates causes' trouble during the implementation of software processes. Hence, this paper aims to propose a measure for the estimation of software development effort (SDE) on the basis of requirement based complexity of yet to be developed software. The requirement based complexity has its basis on software requirements specification (SRS) of the proposed software, in order to carry out a systematic and accurate estimation of SDE. For validation purpose, the proposed SDE measure is also categorically compared with various other established SDE estimation practices proposed in the past like algorithmic models, function point count, use case point and lines of code (LOC). The result obtained validates the claim that the proposed SDE measure is systematic, comprehensive one and compares well with other prevalent SDE measures. Hence, it is even more useful because the complexity and SDE estimates are obtained at very early stage of software development life cycle (SDLC) as compared to other software development effort practices proposed in the past. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of C3IT