The Role of Judgment in Software Estimation

This panel will meet Tuesday evening (see Advance Program).

Steven Fraser Panel Impresario Director, Cisco Research Center Cisco Systems San Jose, CA. USA Barry Boehm Professor & Director USC Center for Software Engineering Los Angeles, CA. USA Hakan Erdogmus Senior Research Officer Software Engineering Group National Research Council Ottawa, ON. Canada

Magne Jřrgensen Professor & Research Scientist Simula Research Center Lysaker, Norway Stan Rifkin Principal Master Systems Carlsbad, CA. USA Mike Ross President & CEO r2Estimating, LLC Scottsdale, AZ. USA

Abstract:

Consequences of poor (or good) judgment in estimation are reflected in software quality, cost, time-to-market, and operational reliability. While judgment plays a prominent role in aviation and medicine – the same care arguably needs to be taken in making trade-offs impacting software development. This panel will bring together practitioners to discuss aspects of judgment in software estimation including a discussion of current practices and influences from other disciplines

1. Steven Fraser, Panel Impresario

Steven Fraser joined the Cisco Research Center in 2007 with responsibilities for developing and managing university research relations. Prior to joining Cisco, Steve held a variety of technical management roles at Qualcomm (San Diego), Nortel (Santa Clara), the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at CMU (Pitts burgh), and at BNR (Ottawa). Steve has been frequently involved in the organization of the ACM’s OOP­SLA, the IEEE’s ICSE and the XP200N series of software conferences. Steve holds a doctorate (Electrical Engineering) from McGill University in Montréal – and is a member of the ACM and a senior member of the IEEE.

2. Barry Boehm

Barry Boehm is the TRW Professor of Software Engineering in the USC Computer Science Department. He has led the development of the COCOMO and CO COMO II family of parametric estimation models, the Wideband Delphi method for expert judgment estimation, the Bayesian calibration method for combining expert judgment and data analysis into a parametric estimation model, and the Agile COCOMO II method and tool for combining analogy-based and parametric-model-based estimation. He is a Fellow of the primary professional societies in computing (ACM), aerospace (AIAA), electronics (IEEE), and systems engineering (IN COSE), and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

3. Hakan Erdogmus

Hakan Erdogmus is a senior research officer in the Software Engineering Group at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada, an adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary, and the editor-in-chief of IEEE Software. His research interests are centered on software processes and the economics of software development.

4. Magne Jřrgensen

Magne Jřrgensen is a professor at the Simula Research Laboratory and University of Oslo. His research focuses on improving judgment-based effort estimation. He has worked as a software developer and project manager for several years and trained estimators in the use of formal estimation models and judgment-based estimation processes. His estimation studies can be downloaded from www.simula.no.

5. Stan Rifkin

Stan Rifkin was an associate editor in chief of IEEE Software for the areas of management and quality for four years, during which he shepherded the debate between Magne Jřrgensen and Barry Boehm on the place of expert judgment in software effort estimation. He worked at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) for three years and was the founder and is a principal of Master Systems Inc., an advisory services firm in its 24th year. He is his employer's representative to the University of Southern California Center for Systems and Software Engineering, for which Barry Boehm is the co-director. He is a senior member of IEEE and ACM, and has taught graduate business and engineering as an adjunct for over twenty years; he was recently awarded Best Teacher in the graduate engineering program at National University. Stan has degrees in business administration, engineering, and organizational systems.

6. Mike Ross

Mike Ross has over 33 years of experience in software engineering as a developer, manager, process champion, consultant, instructor, and award-winning international speaker. Mike is currently the President and CEO of r2Estimating, LLC (makers of r2Estimator). Mike’s previous experience includes three years as Chief Engineer of Galorath Inc. (makers of the SEER suite of estimation tools), seven years with Quantitative Software Management, Inc. (makers of the SLIM suite of software estimating tools) where he was Vice President of Education Services, and 17 years with Honeywell Air Transport Systems (formerly Sperry Flight Systems) and 2 years with Tracor Aero space where he developed or managed the development of embedded software for avionics systems installed various commercial airplanes and for expendable counter measures systems installed in various military aircraft. He also co-founded Honeywell Air Transport Systems’ SEPG, served as its focal for software project management process improvement, and served as a Honeywell corporate SEI CMM assessor. Mike did his undergraduate work at the United States Air Force Academy and Arizona State University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering.