Software Development Effort Estimation Techniques: A Review

The most important activity in software project management process is the estimation of Software development effort. The literature shows many algorithmic cost estimation models such as Boehm’s COCOMO, Albrechtʹs Function Point Analysis, Putnam’s SLIM, ESTIMACS, Soft computing based techniques etc., but each model have their own advantages and disadvantages in predicting development cost and effort. This is because of the availability of project data in the initial stages of development process is often incomplete, inconsistent and vague. The accurate effort estimation in software project management process is major challenge. This paper is a systematic reviewof classic and contemporary literature on software effort estimation. A systematicsearch is done across data sources to understand the issues and research problems ineffort estimation problem domain.