INCREMENTAL DELIVERY REDUCES MAINTENANCE COST - A COCOMO-BASED STUDY

Incremental delivery (ID) is a software development paradigm which adv ocates that systems be delivered to end users in usable, useful and se mi-independent increments. ID differs from the traditional development paradigm, which we call monolithic delivery (MD), in which a software system is considered as a monolithic, inseparable whole delivered as one unit. The purpose of this study is to compare the ID and MD approa ches in terms of their maintenance efforts through an analytical param etric study. The results of the study provide insight into how increme ntal delivery can be employed to reduce software maintenance effort. ( C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.