Cost Estimation of Software Projects through
Case Base Reasoning

Rossella Bisio and Fabio Malabocchia

Centro Studi E Laboratori Telecomunicazioni
Via Guglielmo Reiss Romoli, 274
10148 Torino, Italy
Fax: +39-11-2286862
Tel: +39-11-2286999 E-Mail : Rossella.Bisio@cselt.stet.it
Tel: +39-11-2286778 E-Mail : Fabio.Malabocchia@cselt.stet.it


Abstract. One of the most challenging goals for the software development 
community is the definition and assessment of techniques and tools
enabling the cost estimation of projects in the early phases of the software 
life cycle. Despite of the increasing needs and the available tools
and methods, a satisfactory solution is still to be found.
During the last two years, has gained some interest in this community
an approach based on analogy. Following this approach, an estimation
is made starting from analogies with other software projects met in the
past. The main reason for this trend is the increased flexibility with respect 
to other approaches. The main drawback of this method was the
inadequacy of the software technologies to provide an effective and eflident 
implementation.
The experience reported here, demonstrates that CBR techniques allow
a natural implementation of the estimation by analogy paradigm, and
the software estimation by analogy in particular.


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