Application of re-estimation in re-planning of software product releases

  • Authors:

  • Ahmed Al-Emran;Anas Jadallah;Elham Paikari;Dietmar Pfahl;Günther Ruhe

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary;Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary;Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary;Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary and Department of Informatics, University of Oslo;Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary and Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary and Expert Decisions Inc., Calg ...

  • Venue:
  • ICSP'10 Proceedings of the 2010 international conference on New modeling concepts for today's software processes: software process
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Re-planning of product releases is a very dynamic endeavor and new research methods or improvements of existing methods are still required. This paper explores the role of re-estimation in the re-planning process of product releases. The purpose of this study is to analyze effects of defect and effort re-estimation in the process of release re-planning. In particular, two questions are answered: Question 1: In the absence of re-estimation, does conducting re-planning have any advantages over not conducting re-planning? Question 2: In the case of re-planning, does conducting re-estimation have any advantages over not conducting re-estimation? The proposed method H2W-Pred extends the existing H2W re-planning method by accommodating dynamic updates on defect and effort estimates whenever re-planning takes place. Based on the updates, effort for development of new functionality needs to be re-adjusted and balanced against the additional effort necessary to ensure quality early. The proposed approach is illustrated by case examples with simulated data. The simulation results show that conducting re-planning yields better release value in terms of functionality than not conducting re-planning. Furthermore, performing re-estimation when doing re-planning generates a portfolio of solutions that help balance trade-offs between several aspects of release value, e.g., between functionality and quality. If the development of a product release requires balancing between potentially conflictive aspects, such as quality vs. functionality, then re-estimation in the re-planning process is beneficial.