Estimation Cost Of A Software Project

Avnish Kumar says : Hi All

I have to give the estimation cost of a software project.
It is a browser based application.

My Query is Which method should i follow for the costing and is there any good help is available on Internet for that.

Thanks alot in advance
Avnish Kumar

rjacksix says : Personal experience is that your best metric for a rough cut estimate is number of pages and page complexity. Personal experience is that you should also make ABSOLUTELY sure that you allocate about 35% of your time to Web Site Look and Feel / GUI Specification. Get the look and feel, colors, etc agreed upon and down in writing before you head down the road. Everything else is a SMOP (Simple Matter of Programming) but GUI/L&F are "expectation" oriented.

Hope this helps

ross_valusoft says :

Avnish Kumar>Hi All

I have to give the estimation cost of a software project.
It is a browser based application.

My Query is Which method should i follow for the costing and is there any good help is available on Internet for that.

Thanks alot in advance
Avnish Kumar

Hello Avnish,

Many years ago, I developed a simple Excel spreadsheet that helps me to estimate software projects. Its basis is the Work Breakdown Method of identifying the component parts of the project. You simply enter a description of the individual task, eg "design customer table and code the creation of empty customer table". This type of task should not be new, ie, you should have had some prior experience in doing so and therefore be able to estimate accurately how long this will take. I work in minutes and this would be a 10-15 minute task. This also gives you an idea of the resolution that I use in estimating project costs. I draw heavily upon prior coding times which I record in the same spreadsheet as I finish each task. The spreadsheet keeps a running total of my overs and unders so that I can be confident of where I am overall. Where another project might require a complete "customer module", I simply transfer the total time of a previous customer module into the new project estimation sheet. History is your friend.

The sheet totals the times and applies my hourly charge rate and then allows me to apply a percentage for risk; the risk of not getting paid, of not having the project defined correctly, risk associated with a new technology, etc.

Although it may appear overly detailed at this stage, I have found it very useful in ensuring that I understand what the project is about.

Regards,

Ross McKenzie
ValuSoft
Melbourne Australia

Unregistered says :

rjacksix>Personal experience is that your best metric for a rough cut estimate is number of pages and page complexity. Personal experience is that you should also make ABSOLUTELY sure that you allocate about 35% of your time to Web Site Look and Feel / GUI Specification. Get the look and feel, colors, etc agreed upon and down in writing before you head down the road. Everything else is a SMOP (Simple Matter of Programming) but GUI/L&F are "expectation" oriented.

Hope this helps

Hi,

Check out this website, it has good articles on estimation and a fully functional estimation tool for download based upon use case point estimation
http://liemur.co.uk/Articles/UseCasePointEstimation.html
And another on Wideband Delphi technique
http://liemur.co.uk/Articles/Wideband_Delphi.html

I have used the estimation tool on a project and found it very useful and easy to use.