Estimating

After you enter the attributes of your proposed project, the tool selects similar projects from the ISBSG industry data, to provide a range of estimates: “Optimistic”, “Likely” and “Conservative” for project effort, delivery rate, duration and speed of delivery.

Benchmarking

If you enter the attributes of your completed project the tool will provide a range of values from the ISBSG data for software project effort, delivery rate, duration and speed of delivery, you can then compare these to the performance of your project.

The Tool
The ISBSG Comparative Estimating Tool is an MS Excel based tool that is used to generate estimates of software project effort, delivery rate, duration and speed of delivery.  These estimates are determined from the averages of project delivery rates and speed of delivery for a selection of projects, from ISBSG data deemed to be similar to the project for which the estimate is required.

The tool filters the ISBSG data to ensure a comparison of “apples with apples”.  It then allows the user to specify up to eleven project attributes to further refine the choice of projects that can be compared to the project being estimated.  A range of estimates is provided: “Optimistic”, “Likely” and “Conservative”.  The estimates generated are for the core software development team (ie project team, project management and project administration), they do not include development team support, computer operations support or end-users or clients.

Notes:

• The ISBSG estimating tools are “White Box” tools, they use the ISBSG data and documented rules and equations that you can verify.
• The ISBSG recommends the use of multiple estimation approaches, preferably combining Micro and Macro techniques.