ESC501 (COCOMO Model

& Cost Estimation)

- PROF. POULAMI DUTTA
 Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
Differentiate among organic, semidetached and embedded software projects.
Explain basic COCOMO.
Differentiate between basic COCOMO model and intermediate COCOMO model.
Explain the complete COCOMO model.

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 COCOMO Model
COCOMO (COnstructive COst MOdel) proposed by Boehm.

Divides software product developments into 3 categories:

Organic,

Semidetached,

Embedded.

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 COCOMO Product classes

Roughly correspond to:

application, utility and system programs respectively.

Data processing and scientific programs are considered to be application

programs.

Compilers, linkers, editors, etc. are utility programs.

Operating systems and real-time system programs, etc. are system programs.

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 Elaboration of Product classes
Organic:
 The project deals with developing a well understood application.
 The development team is small.
 The team members have prior experience in working with similar types of projects.

Semidetached:
 The team consists of some experienced as well as inexperienced staff.
 Team members may have some experience on the type of system to be developed.

Embedded:
 Aims to develop a software strongly related to machine hardware or real-time systems.
 Team size is usually large.

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Comparative Study of Product Classes

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 COCOMO Model (CONT.)

For each of the three product categories:

From size estimation (in KLOC), Boehm provides equations to predict:

 project duration in months

 effort in programmer-months/person-months

Boehm obtained these equations:

examined historical data collected from a large number of actual projects.

estimation of project parameters should be done through three stages: Basic COCOMO,
Intermediate COCOMO, and Complete COCOMO.

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 COCOMO Model (CONT.)
Software cost estimation is done through three stages:

Basic COCOMO,

Intermediate COCOMO,

Complete COCOMO.

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 Basic COCOMO Model
The basic COCOMO model helps to obtain a rough estimate of the project parameters.
It estimates effort and time required for development in the following way:
Effort = a * (KDSI)b PM
Tdev = 2.5 * (Effort)c Months
where,
 KDSI is the estimated size of the software expressed in Kilo Delivered Source Instructions,
 a, b, c are constants determined by the category of software project,
 Effort denotes the total effort required for the software development, expressed in person months (PMs),
 Tdev denotes the estimated time required to develop the software (expressed in months).

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 Basic COCOMO Model (CONTD)….
Software project a b c

Organic 2.4 1.05 0.38

Semi-detached 3.0 1.12 0.35

Embedded 3.6 1.20 0.32

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 Development Effort Estimation
Organic :
 Effort = 2.4 x (KLOC)1.05 PM.
 Semi-detached:
Effort = 3.0 x (KLOC)1.12 PM.
 Embedded:
Effort = 3.6 x (KLOC)1.20 PM.

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 Development Time Estimation
Organic:
Tdev = 2.5 (Effort)0.38 Months.
Semi-detached:
Tdev = 2.5 (Effort)0.35 Months.
Embedded:
Tdev = 2.5 (Effort)0.32 Months.

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 Basic COCOMO Model (CONTD)….

Effort is somewhat super-linear

d
in problem size. che
a
et
Effort id
m
Se
ded
d
be
Em a nic
g
Or

Size

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 Basic COCOMO Model (CONTD)….
Development time:
Dev. Time
sublinear function of product size.
When product size increases two times, dded a ched
be id et
development time does not double. 18 Months Em Sem
Time taken:
14 Months
almost same for all the three product nic
g a
categories. Or

30K 60K
Size

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 Basic COCOMO Model (CONTD)….
Development time does not increase linearly with product size:
For larger products more parallel activities can be identified:
can be carried out simultaneously by a number of engineers.

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 Basic COCOMO Model (CONTD)….
Development time is roughly the same for all the three categories of products:
For example, a 60 KLOC program can be developed in approximately 18 months.
regardless of whether it is of organic, semi-detached, or embedded type.
There is more scope for parallel activities for system and application programs, than utility programs.
 Effort = 2.4 x (60)1.05 PM. = 176.713 PM.
 Effort = 3.0 x (60)1.12 PM. = 294.205 PM.
 Effort = 3.6 x (60)1.20 PM. = 489.873 PM.

 Tdev = 2.5 x (176.713)0.38 Months. = 17.8 Months.

 Tdev = 2.5 x (294.205)0.35 Months. = 18.27 Months.
 Tdev = 2.5 (489.873)0.32 Months. = 18.14 Months.

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 Example
The size of an organic software product has been estimated to be
32,000 lines of source code.

Effort = 2.4*(32)1.05 = 91 PM
Nominal development time = 2.5*(91)0.38 = 14 months

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
Intermediate COCOMO model assumes:
effort and development time depend on product size alone.
However, several parameters affect effort and development time:
Reliability requirements.
Availability of CASE tools and modern facilities to the developers.
Size of data to be handled.

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
(CONTD)…...
The intermediate COCOMO take those other factors into consideration by defining a set of 15
cost drivers (multipliers).

Each of the 15 such attributes can be rated on a six-point scale ranging from "very low" to
"extra high" in their relative order of importance.

Each attribute has an effort multiplier fixed as per the rating.

The product of effort multipliers of all the 15 attributes gives the Effort Adjustment Factor
(EAF).

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
(CONTD)…...
Cost driver classes:
Product: Inherent complexity of the product, reliability requirements of the product, etc.
Computer: Execution time, storage requirements, etc.
Personnel: Experience of personnel, etc.
Development Environment: Sophistication of the tools used for software development.

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
(CONTD)…...

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
(CONTD)…...
EAF is used to refine the estimates obtained by basic COCOMO as follows:
Effort|corrected = Effort * EAF
Tdev|corrected = 2.5 * (Effort| corrected) c

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 Intermediate COCOMO Model
(CONTD)…...
Software project a b c

Organic 3.2 1.05 0.38

Semi-detached 3.0 1.12 0.35

Embedded 2.8 1.20 0.32

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 Example
The size of a software product has been estimated to be 200 KLOC. Cost drivers are as follows:
 Low Reliability 0.88
 High Product Complexity 1.15
 Low Application Experience 1.13
 High Programming Language Experience 0.95
EAF = 0.88 * 1.15 * 1.13 * 0.95 = 1.086
 Semi-Detached:
 Effort|corrected = Effort * EAF
 = 3.0 X (200)1.12 X 1.086 = 1230.56 = 1231 PM
 Tdev|corrected = 2.5 * (Effort| corrected) c
 =
2.5 x (1231)0.35
 = 30.16 months = 30 months

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Shortcomings of Basic and Intermediate COCOMO
Models
Both models:
consider a software product as a single homogeneous entity.
However, most large systems are made up of several smaller sub-systems.
Some sub-systems may be considered as organic type, some may be considered embedded,
etc.
for some the reliability requirements may be high, and so on.

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 Complete COCOMO Model
Cost of each sub-system is estimated separately.
Costs of the sub-systems are added to obtain total cost.
Reduces the margin of error in the final estimate.

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 Complete COCOMO Model (CONTD)
A Management Information System (MIS) for an organization having offices at several
places across the country:
Database part (semi-detached)
Graphical User Interface (GUI) part (organic)
Communication part (embedded)
Costs of the components are estimated separately:
summed up to give the overall cost of the system.

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 Complete COCOMO Model (CONTD) ..
To illustrate this, consider a very popular distributed application: the ticket booking system of the Indian
Railways. There are computerized ticket counters in most of the railway stations of our country. Tickets can be
booked / cancelled from any such counter. Reservations for future tickets, cancellation of reserved tickets
could also be performed. On a high level, the ticket booking system has three main components:
Database
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Networking facilities
Among these, development of the GUI is considered as an organic project type; the database module could be
considered as a semi-detached software. The networking module can be considered as an embedded software.
To obtain a realistic cost, one should estimate the costs for each component separately, and then add it up.

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Advantages & Disadvantages of COCOMO

Easy to estimate the total cost of the project.

Easy to implement with various factors.
Provide ideas about historical projects.

It ignores requirements, customer skills, and

hardware issues.
It limits the accuracy of the software costs.
It mostly depends on time factors.

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 COCOMO II Model
COCOMO-II is the revised version of the original Cocomo (Constructive Cost Model) and is
developed at University of Southern California.
It is the model that allows one to estimate the cost, effort and schedule when planning a new
software development activity.

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