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The Constructive Cost Model

The Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) is a software cost estimation model developed by Barry Boehm using regression analysis of historical project data and characteristics. It was first published in 1981 and a revised version, COCOMO II, was released in 2000 to account for modern development processes. COCOMO estimates effort, cost, and schedule through basic, intermediate, and detailed forms with increasing accuracy by considering factors like project size, team experience, and constraints.

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175 views4 pages

The Constructive Cost Model

The Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) is a software cost estimation model developed by Barry Boehm using regression analysis of historical project data and characteristics. It was first published in 1981 and a revised version, COCOMO II, was released in 2000 to account for modern development processes. COCOMO estimates effort, cost, and schedule through basic, intermediate, and detailed forms with increasing accuracy by considering factors like project size, team experience, and constraints.

Uploaded by

shirley
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) is an algorithmic software cost estimation model

developed by Barry Boehm. The model uses a basic regression formula, with parameters that are
derived from historical project data and current project characteristics.

COCOMO was first published in 1981 Barry W. Boehm's Book Software engineering
economics[1] as a model for estimating effort, cost, and schedule for software projects. It drew on
a study of 63 projects at TRW Aerospace where Barry Boehm was Director of Software Research
and Technology in 1981. The study examined projects ranging in size from 2,000 to 100,000 lines
of code, and programming languages ranging from assembly to PL/I. These projects were based
on the waterfall model of software development which was the prevalent software development
process in 1981.

References to this model typically call it COCOMO 81. In 1997 COCOMO II was developed and
finally published in 2000 in the book Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II[2]. COCOMO
II is the successor of COCOMO 81 and is better suited for estimating modern software
development projects. It provides more support for modern software development processes and
an updated project database. The need for the new model came as software development
technology moved from mainframe and overnight batch processing to desktop development, code
reusability and the use of off-the-shelf software components. This article refers to COCOMO 81.

COCOMO consists of a hierarchy of three increasingly detailed and accurate forms. The first level,
Basic COCOMO is good for quick, early, rough order of magnitude estimates of software costs,
but its accuracy is limited due to its lack of factors to account for difference in project attributes
(Cost Drivers). Intermediate COCOMO takes these Cost Drivers into account and Detailed
COCOMO additionally accounts for the influence of individual project phases.

The Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) is an algorithmic software cost estimation model
developed by Barry Boehm. The model uses a basic regression formula, with parameters that are
derived from historical project data and current project characteristics.
COCOMO was first published in 1981 Barry W. Boehm's Book Software engineering
economics[1] as a model for estimating effort, cost, and schedule for software projects. It drew on
a study of 63 projects at TRW Aerospace where Barry Boehm was Director of Software Research
and Technology in 1981. The study examined projects ranging in size from 2,000 to 100,000 lines
of code, and programming languages ranging from assembly to PL/I. These projects were based
on the waterfall model of software development which was the prevalent software development
process in 1981.

References to this model typically call it COCOMO 81. In 1997 COCOMO II was developed and
finally published in 2000 in the book Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II[2]. COCOMO
II is the successor of COCOMO 81 and is better suited for estimating modern software
development projects. It provides more support for modern software development processes and
an updated project database. The need for the new model came as software development
technology moved from mainframe and overnight batch processing to desktop development, code
reusability and the use of off-the-shelf software components. This article refers to COCOMO 81.

COCOMO consists of a hierarchy of three increasingly detailed and accurate forms. The first level,
Basic COCOMO is good for quick, early, rough order of magnitude estimates of software costs,
but its accuracy is limited due to its lack of factors to account for difference in project attributes
(Cost Drivers). Intermediate COCOMO takes these Cost Drivers into account and Detailed
COCOMO additionally accounts for the influence of individual project phases.Basic COCOMO
computes software development effort (and cost) as a function of program size. Program size is
expressed in estimated thousands of lines of code (KLOC).

COCOMO applies to three classes of software projects:

* Organic projects - "small" teams with "good" experience working with "less than rigid"
requirements

* Semi-detached projects - "medium" teams with mixed experience working with a mix of rigid
and less than rigid requirements
* Embedded projects - developed within a set of "tight" constraints (hardware, software,
operational, ...)

The basic COCOMO equations take the form

Effort Applied = ab(KLOC)bb [ man-months ]

Development Time = cb(Effort Applied)db [months]

People required = Effort Applied / Development Time [count]

The coefficients ab, bb, cb and db are given in the following table.

Software project ab bb cb db

Organic 2.4 1.05 2.5 0.38

Semi-detached 3.0 1.12 2.5 0.35

Embedded 3.6 1.20 2.5 0.32

Basic COCOMO is good for quick estimate of software costs. However it does not account for
differences in hardware constraints, personnel quality and experience, use of modern tools and
techniques, and so on.

Intermediate COCOMO computes software development effort as function of program size and a
set of "cost drivers" that include subjective assessment of product, hardware, personnel and project
attributes. This extension considers a set of four "cost drivers",each with a number of subsidiary
attributes:-

* Product attributes

Required software reliability

Size of application database


Complexity of the product

* Hardware attributes

Run-time performance constraints

Memory constraints

Volatility of the virtual machine environment

Required turnabout time

* Personnel attributes

Analyst capability

Software engineering capability

Applications experience

Virtual machine experience

Programming language experience

* Project attributes

Use of software tools

Application of software engineering methods

Required development schedule

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