The analysis effort method is a method for estimating the duration of

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

projects.Software Estimation chapter
from O'Reilly, ''Applied Software Project Management'' It is best suited to producing initial estimates for the length of a job based on a known time duration for preparing a specification. Inputs to the method are numeric factors which indicate Size (S), Familiarity (F) and Complexity (C). These, with a duration for preparing the

software specification In computer science, formal specifications are mathematically based techniques whose purpose are to help with the implementation of systems and software. They are used to describe a system, to analyze its behavior, and to aid in its design by verif ...

can be used in a look up table (which contains factors based on previous experience) to determine with length of each of the following phases of the work. These being Design, Coding and Unit testing and Testing. The method does not include any times for training or

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. T ...

. This method should be used as one of a number of estimation techniques to obtain a more accurate estimate.

References

Software engineering costs {{software-eng-stub