Enhanced estimation in agile software projects / Nisma Abdulhammed Mohammed Gaffar ; Supervised Galal H. Galal Edeen , Amr Kamel , Hanan Moussa

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Computers and Information - Department of Information Systems

Estimating the size of software projects is a key element for accurate effort and duration estimation. Poor size estimation may increase the budget and delay the delivery of the project. We surveyed a number of approaches that are used to estimate software size. Function Points is a popular unit used to estimate the size of traditional software development. However, in agile software projects, the project size is estimated and measured based on the experience of the team by Story Points (SP). SP is the common sizing unit that is assigned based on the relative size of the User Story. However, the Story Point measure as it stands is subjective and is not defined in a standard way, and is ill-suited to large projects or large requirements. There is a need to improve the SP sizing unit to improve its consistency and suitability for larger requirements. In this research, we propose a framework for estimating Epics (large requirements /User Stories) in agile software projects. We propose the Enhanced Story Point (ESP) measure to enhance size estimation on agile software projects and help the team members to reach an accurate estimation especially when the team has too low an experience to deal with Story Points. We applied our framework to three case studies to demonstrate its utility and calculated the Enhanced Story Point (ESP) as a unit to measure the size of each case study

Issued also as CD