Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/1077
Title: Software project economics: A roadmap
Authors: Shepperd, MJ
Keywords: Cost models;Effort prediction;Empirical software engineering;Software project management
Issue Date: 2007
Publisher: IEEE
Citation: International Conference on Software Engineering 2007: Future of Software Engineering, pp. 304-315
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to consider research progress in the field of software project economics with a view to identifying important challenges and promising research directions. I argue that this is an important sub-discipline since this will underpin any cost-benefit analysis used to justify the resourcing, or otherwise, of a software project. To accomplish this I conducted a bibliometric analysis of peer reviewed research articles to identify major areas of activity. My results indicate that the primary goal of more accurate cost prediction systems remains largely unachieved. However, there are a number of new and promising avenues of research including: how we can combine results from primary studies, integration of multiple predictions and applying greater emphasis upon the human aspects of prediction tasks. I conclude that the field is likely to remain very challenging due to the people-centric nature of software engineering, since it is in essence a design task. Nevertheless the need for good economic models will grow rather than diminish as software becomes increasingly ubiquitous.
URI: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/1077
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/FOSE.2007.23
ISBN: 0-7695-2829-5
Appears in Collections:Publications
Computer Science
Dept of Computer Science Research Papers
Software Engineering (B-SERC)

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