A Study of software estimation factors extracted using covariance structure analysis

Customers and IT vendors must be in agreement regarding the process and result of project delivery estimation. However, IT vendors often have difficulty explaining the complexity and dynamic difficulty of project specification for customers, who do not have IT expertise. Moreover, customers may feel unsatisfied because they often receive unexpected project estimations from IT vendors without clarification about the estimation method. This is because the degree of difficulty is not considered in project scale estimations, such as LOC (lines of code) and FP (function point). In this study, we identify potential productivity fluctuation factors that are not considered in software estimation methods such as software LOC, FP, etc. Specifically, the variation factor considered to affect the project is set as an observation variable. Next, the model is evaluated from the population estimation results using the structural equation model. Using this evaluated model, we discover concepts that could not identified before estimation. Additionally, we also identify factors that may affect the composition.