Estimating Software-Intensive Systems: Projects, Products, and Processes

Chapter 5Estimating Techniques

This chapter describes simple techniques that you can use to estimate a wide range of quantities for projects, products, and processes. You can implement these using paper forms, templates, or spreadsheets. These techniques are basic building blocks that you can use to create estimating models, methods, and processes. After reading this chapter, you can immediately start using these techniques to start producing better estimates. The following chapters show you how to apply these to estimate specific quantities such as product size and project effort.

Section 5.1 describes the Delphi technique. Sections 5.2 through 5.6 describe various techniques. The sections also provide examples showing the use of each technique. ...