A comparative study of two software development cost modeling techniques using multi-organizational and company-specific data

This research examined the use of the International Software Benchmarking S tandards Group (ISBSG) repository for estimating effort for software projec ts in an organization not involved in ISBSG. The study investigates two que stions: (1) What are the differences in accuracy between ordinary least-squ ares (OLS) regression and Analogy-based estimation? (2) Is there a differen ce in accuracy between estimates derived from the multi-company ISBSG data and estimates derived from company-specific data? Regarding the first quest ion, we found that OLS regression performed as well as Analogy-based estima tion when using company-specific data for model building. Using multi-compa ny data the OLS regression model provided significantly more accurate resul ts than Analogy-based predictions. Addressing the second question, we found in general that models based on the company-specific data resulted in sign ificantly more accurate estimates. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.