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5.6.4 Applying an Activity Based Counting Technique to System Design Efforts
Author(s) -
Shupp Jeffrey K.,
Martin Lockheed
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.1998.tb00113.x
Subject(s) - scope (computer science) , computer science , systems development life cycle , activity based costing , baseline (sea) , systems engineering , risk analysis (engineering) , statement of work , software , software development , software engineering , software development process , engineering , business , oceanography , marketing , programming language , geology , rework , embedded system
Established costing techniques applied to software based systems provide a reasonably accurate technique in predicting the implementation costs of projects. For projects with a firm design baseline, driven by well defined requirements, the systems engineering cost is typically based on a “tax” of x% of the total development hours. When the software system being proposed is large, or when the customer's needs are not well articulated in the specifications, a simple multiplier against the total development effort is insufficient to predict the systems engineering effort. Even predictions based comparing design artifacts from one project to another cannot be successfully defended during cost negotiations. This paper proposes a technique that assesses the scope of Systems Engineering work by examining the executing features of the design and their associated difficulty. Examining how the system runs early in the development cycle helps the project better understand where the unknowns and uncertainties are in the design, providing insight into technical risk management, as well as providing more defensible costs.