COST ESTIMATION
WHAT IS COCOMO?
The Constructive Cost Model, or COCOMO, is a method used for software cost evaluation that is highly praised. COCOMO is able to estimate the cost of software by taking into account the influence of 15 cost drivers on the software being developed. Some examples of the cost drivers are the database size, use of software tools and quality programmers. The cost drivers are used to adjust the nominal effort by a factor based on the value of the cost driver (high, medium, low, and so on.) COCOMO estimates the size of the software using several equations, which produces results that gives the relationship between the size and effort, as well as between the effort and development time, of the software. In COCOMO, the software size is estimated based on 3 categories of developmental modes: organic, semi-detached and embedded. COCOMO also takes into consideration that the value of a cost driver would differ at different stages in the software development process. Thus, the importance of a certain cost driver would not affect the cost itself throughout the entire lifetime of the project’s development.
WHY CHOOSE COCOMO2 FOR THIS PROJECT?
COCOMO II was chosen for this project due to its reputation for being effective and thorough in determining the software cost evaluation of other projects. Since its method takes multiple aspects of the software project’s development, such as how cost drivers change influence at different stages in the process, as well as the mode of software development used, COCOMO was deemed as an extremely suitable method of software cost evaluation for our project.
PROJECT COST BREAKDOWN
The following table shows the breakdown for the cost of the system using the COCOMO2 cost modeling technique. Online sources were used to determine the average salary of a web developer in Trinidad and Tobago.
