A COCOMO-based approach to decision support in offshoring software development projects

In this paper we examine the evaluation, of software development projects when several offshore service providers are involved. Therefore it supports the process of setting up a sourcing portfolio. The introduced decision support model is based on the well-known effort estimation approach COCOMO which supports the transfer into practice remarkably. Based on the costs of a proprietary development, the model describes to what extent the related development effort is affected by the sourcing decision. Additionally it quantifies the expected savings by considering the risk involved in the sourcing decision. As a result it can be stated that solely focusing on labour cost differences will usually lead to false. decisions. Finally a detailed case study shows the practicability of the decision support model and illustrates its results.