Lifecycle Effort Estimation for Component Based Software Engineering: A Model and its Soft Computing Based Implementation

摘要

Research in Effort Estimation for Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE) has so far focused on component selection and integration effort. However, in order to get a fair idea of feasibility of a project full lifecycle effort must be taken into account. This paper presents a lifecycle based effort estimation approach for CBSE. A new CBSE lifecycle model called Circular Process Model (CPM) is presented with the novel idea of rejuvenation of one lifecycle phase during the course of later phases, something which is inevitable in CBSE. Quality assessment of CPM in light of the PQMM process measurement model reveals essential merit of the process. Subsequently, CPM is used as a framework for introducing enhanced effort parameters that are employed by an original soft computing approach to estimate lifecycle effort of a CBSE project. Validation with industrial data shows high accuracy of the proposed system.