Software Costs and Schedule Estimations Based on the Work Coordination Laws

In the study of abstract work coordination and organization, Wang finds a formal and quantitative relation among workload, time, and labor allocation known as the law of coordinative work organization and the law of the shortest duration of coordination projects. Wang´s laws provide a formal explains for the mythical man-month. The laws reveal that for a given workload, there is an optimum labor allocation, which determines the shortest duration of the project. In this paper we demonstrate how the laws are applied in software engineering project organization. On the basis of Wang´s laws, a formal economic model of software engineering cost (FEMSEC) is created for rational estimation of software engineering project costs, effort, and duration. A comparative case study between FEMSEC and COCOMO II is reported. A support tool for FEMSEC is under development that enables practitioners to apply the laws and to use the FEMSEC tool for rational software engineering project organization and estimation.