Insights and Trends from 25 Years of
COCOMO Forums
Dan Ligett
Softstar Systems
Ligett@SoftstarSystems.com
www.SoftstarSystems.com
(603) 672-0987
25th International Forum on COCOMO and Systems/Software Cost Modeling -- 11/3/2010
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OUTLINE
Perspectives
COCOMO 85 talks
Conclusions
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1985 - 3
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“Software Engineering Economics”,
Barry Boehm
Oddball text book
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still in print after 27 years
21 printings
still relevant
How come?
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revelation?
because we haven’t gotten much better??
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Perspective
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/america.png
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1985
“Back to the Future” opened
Time Person of the year: Deng Xiaoping
New Coke (Classic Coke <> Old Coke)
Commodore launches the Amiga
IBM PC AT (1984), 6MHz 80286, 16MB RAM,
20MB disk, MS-DOS 3.0
MS Windows 1.0 (Windows 3.1 1992)
We worried about Japan and 5GLs.
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7
1985 Call for Participation
Goals for the meeting include sharing of experiences of
usage, learning about present and proposed capabilities,
identifying areas for future research and development.
Comparison to and integration of COCOMO with other
models is also an appropriate topic for discussion.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, usage
experience; novel and unusual applications; extensions
to the model; comparison with other models; integration
with other models; and data collection and recalibration.
In addition, a tools fair we be conducted to demonstrate
available implementations.
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Some Numbers
800 attendees. More like 1,000
Probably 500 talks
77 at COCOMO 85
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11 from DoD
38 from Aerospace/Defense
9 Tool Vendors
5 Telecom
9 other Commercial
2 Academia
3 Unknown
7 countries
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1985 + 24 = 2010
COCOMO Meetings
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#1
+ 24
#25
No meeting in 1992
in 1985
+24
in 2009??
WIGS = 2
Software Engineering Institute = 6
USC =15
Systems and Software Consortium = 1
MIT = 1
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1985 COCOMO / WICOMO Forum
Barry Boehm *
Wolfhart B. Goethert
Robert E. Park
Marilee Wheaton
Walker Royce *
Joe Dean
Randall W. Jensen
Paul R. Garvey
George Bozoki *
Paul Rook *
Dan Ligett *
TRW
IITRI
GE
TRW
Eclectic Systems
Hanscom Air Force Base
Hughes Aircraft Company
MITRE
Target Software
SEPM
Wang Institute
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Barry Boehm, TRW
12
Barry Boehm
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Dan Ligett, Wang Institute
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15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
1984 WICOMO.exe on XP
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Costar 7.0 Main Screen
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Lydon & Poynton
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Lydon & Poynton
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Stephan Greene, DRC
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Stephan Greene, DRC, 1 of 2
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Stephan Greene, DRC, 2 of 2
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Philip Blackwood, Ford Aerospace
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Philip Blackwood, Ford Aerospace
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Greg Blank, McDonnell Douglas
34
Greg Blank, McDonnell Douglas, 1 of
2
35
Greg Blank, McDonnell Douglas, 2 of
2
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Bernard Price, Army Electronics R&D
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Bernard Price, Army Electronics R&D
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Paul Rook, GEC Software
Electronics R&D
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Paul Rook, GEC Software
Electronics R&D, 1 of 2
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Paul Rook, GEC Software
Electronics R&D, 2 of 2
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Walker Royce, Eclectic Systems
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Walker Royce, Eclectic Systems
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Gregory Lazarev, GHL
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Gregory Lazarev, GHL
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Bernward Jopen, Telenet GMBH
46
Bernward Jopen, Telenet GMBH
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Bernward Jopen, Telenet GMBH, 2
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George Bozoki, Lockheed
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George Bozoki, Lockheed
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Roger Warburton, Jaycor
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Roger Warburton, Jaycor, 1 of 2
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Roger Warburton, Jaycor, 2 of 2
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Ed Szwedo, IITRI / DACS
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Ed Szwedo, IITRI / DACS
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Conclusions – Continuity
In 1985 we were sophisticated; we knew to:
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Collect data
Calibrate & validate
Tailor, innovate, extend, adapt
Use more than one model
Be conservative in setting parameters
Same SW quality; no better
Our brains haven’t changed much
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Always trying something beyond our grasp
Same management problems
Same economic trade-offs
Attention span?
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Conclusions -- Changes
Much smarter about uncertainty
More emphasis on Systems
Bigger projects
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components
better tools
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Conclusions – More Changes
Less sure about what to count
Just a bit of SE improvement
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“We tried Software Engineering; it didn’t work”
Trend: Forums less tool-oriented
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BACKUP
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1984 WICOMO
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Other Software Models
(http://seisage.com)
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Costar 1.0 Main Screen
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Costar 7.0 Detail Report
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SW Estimation Models
COCOMO 81, REVIC, COCOMO II
Price S
SEER
Jensen Model(s)
Putnum
11/3/2009
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List 1985 talks, 1 of 3
Barry Boehm - COCOMO: Answering the
Most Frequent Questions
Dan Ligett - The Development of WICOMO
Tom Lydon, Brian Poynton - WICOMO at
Raytheon Current Use and Future Plans
Stephan A. Greene - Front End Analysis of
Software Development Projects
Philip D. Blackwood - A Constructive
Schedule Model
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List 1985 talks, 2 of 3
Greg D. Blank - COCOMO to Jenson Comparison
Bernard C. Price - Government Tailored
COCOMO (GTCOCOMO)
Paul Rook - GECOMO Overview of Facilities,
(presentation), GECOMO: An Implementation of
Extended COCOMO
Walker E. Royce - PCOC: A Complete, UserTailored, Interactive Cost Analysis Tool Based on
COCOMO
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List 1985 talks, 3 of 3
Gregory Lazarev, Winston G. Gresov - Logic
Programming as a Software Engineering Tool,
Logic Programming (PROLOG): A Powerful Tool
Bernward Jopen - Experience with the
Constructive Cost Model in Data
Communications S/W-Projects
George J. Bozoki - A Software Sizing Model
Roger D.H. Warburton - Cost Estimation for Very
High Level Languages
Edward J. Szwedo - COCOMO in the Software
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Support Environment