Use of historical data In software cost estimation

Work aimed at justifying the requirement for a database as an aid to resource estimations for Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive software intensive projects is presented. The work consolidates an earlier study (Vijayakumar, S., 1991, 1994) and uses more recent data collected from 288 MOD projects. The research was initiated to identify and analyse the variables which influence the activities that constitute software development and which determine the cost of software. The earlier study concentrated on the choice of programming language. This study includes proprietary factors and identifies the correlation between the effort during development and the number of executable source lines of code. The recommendations centre on the urgent need to gather and collate data which will assist in the estimation of costs and timescales in procuring software intensive projects.