A survey on software effort estimation techniques

A severe problem that impacts the software project is inaccurate estimation of the effort. Estimation of the software development effort remains an intricate problem. The complexity of the software and its scope are increasing alarmingly which attracts many researchers. Past the decades numerous techniques have been introduced and implemented. Many of them have given good results with acceptable error rates. In this paper, a review of general techniques and models regarding effort estimation has been done. Comparison of several approaches is subsumed and the technique that produces the most accurate result serves as a measure of selection. Every technique has its own merits and pitfalls. But there is no single technique that can do away with all the shortcomings and can be globally accepted, so hybridization of several approaches can be seen as an alternative to produce realistic estimates.