Performance Evaluation of General and Company Specific Models in Software Development Effort Estimation
基于欧洲航天局108个软件项目数据，比较通用模型与公司特定模型在估算工作量时的准确性，发现公司特定模型更准，但资源不足时通用模型优于直觉猜测。
In this paper we present the results of our effort estimation analysis of a European Space Agency database consisting of 108 software development projects. We develop and evaluate simple empirical effort estimation models that include only those productivity factors found to be significant for these projects and determine if models based on a multicompany database can be successfully used to make effort estimations within a specific company. This was accomplished by developing company specific effort estimation models based on the significant productivity factors of a particular company and by comparing the results with those from general ESA models on a holdout sample of the company. To our knowledge, no other published research has yet developed and analysed software development effort estimation models in this way. Effort predictions made on a holdout sample of the individual company's projects using general models were less accurate than the company specific model. However, it is likely that in the absence of enough resources and data for a company to develop its own model, the application of general models may be more accurate than the use of guessing and intuition.