The impact of project planning team experience on software project cost estimates

Data from 135 teams that have participated in a software project planning exercise are analyzed to determine the relationship between team experience and each learn's estimate of total project cost. The analysis shows that cost estimates are dependent upon two kinds of learn experience: (I) the average experience for the members of each team and (2) whether or not any members of the team have similar project experience. It is shown that if no members of a planning team have had similar project experience then the estimate of cost is correlated with average team experience, with teams having greater average team experience producing higher total cost estimates. If at least one member of the planning team has had similiar project experience then there is a weaker relationship between average learn experience and cost, and cost estimates produced by those teams with similar project experience are close to those produced by teams with the greatest average team experience. A qualitative examination of the project plans produced by all teams indicates that the primary reasons that teams with less experience of either type produce lower cost estimates are that they have failed to include sonic tasks that are included by more experienced teams, and that they have estimated shorter task durations than have the more experienced teams.