Notes on Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
I started reading Steve McConnell’s latest book (Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art), as the first chapter comes to a close McConnell points out that companies with higher Capability Maturity Model (CMM) levels have a much higher rate of project success _ higher CMM levels are usually associated with mature companies that use historical data for project estimates, it’s interesting to note that these companies often work within a common domain. I found Steve’s little point quite intuitive, and thought it flowed nicely with Fact 17 from Robert L. Glass’s book titled Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering.
Fact 17
Reuse-in-the-large works best in families of related systems and thus is domain-dependent. This narrows the potential applicability of reuse-in-the-large.
It makes perfect sense that companies working within a common domain make use of reuse-in-the-large and often make better project estimations.
On a similar note I found the Level 1 definition of a CMM from Wikipedia quite amusing.
Level 1 software project success depends on having quality people.
Related posts:
Notes on Software Reuse from the book titled “Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering”
