Software Effort Estimation in early stages of software development: A Review

Abstract

Cost overruns can cause customers to cancel projects whereas the cost underestimates can force a project team to invest much of its time without financial compensation. The accurate prediction of software development costs is a critical issue to make sound management decisions and accurately determining how much effort and time a project requires for project managers, system analysts and developers. Without reasonably accurate cost estimation capability, project managers cannot determine how much time, manpower, cost and resources the project should take from beginning of a project till its completion.
During the past ten to fifteen years, the importance of software in general and web application in particular has dramatically increased in our daily lives. This trend is expected to accelerate in the coming years, as software’s importance in our day to day activities has grown and the focus on its overall performance both technically and programmatically has also increased. A good cost estimate early in the project’s life cycle helps the project manager to optimally implement the project within budget and scheduled time.