How to Improve Your Company's Effort Estimation Practices

Abstract

Numerous Web development companies worldwide do not employ formal techniques to estimate effort for new projects, thus relying on expert-based opinion (McDonald & Welland, 2001; Mendes, Mosley, & Counsell, 2005). In addition, many Web companies do not gather any data on past projects, which can later be used to estimate effort for new projects, and as a consequence they are not aware of how effort is used throughout their projects and if it could be used more effectively. This chapter provides a set of guidelines we believe can be of benefit to Web companies to help them improve their effort estimation practices. Our guidelines are particularly targeted at small Web development companies.