Software Cost Modelling

Paper: The Chaos Report

Summary:
The Chaos Report is published by The Standish Group, a research firm. The Chaos Report focuses on software project failures, identifying the scope of failures, factors that cause failures, and factors that reduces failures. The subject of the research were U.S. companies that has an MIS department. In this report, they found that the average cost overruns was 189% of the original estimation. The bigger the company, the higher it's chances of having a failure.

Relation with research:
This paper provides the starting point for identifying problems with cost estimation. With a high level of cost overruns, there should be a better way to estimate the project cost. This is where software cost models like COCOMO take part. Better estimation of project cost will encourage better Executive Management Support, one of the factors that reduces failures.

Notes:
provide a firm reasoning between better estimation of project cost and better executive management support. Also link to 2004 Chaos Report that moves Executive Management Support to number one factor that reduces failure rate.