CSSE Annual Research Review
Ricardo Valerdi, Indrajeet Dixit, Garry Roedler
[rvalerdi@mit.edu] [idixit@usc.edu] [garry.j.roedler@lmco.com]
Tuesday February 13, 2007
Los Angeles, CA

1:00 Update on recent work
Recent myths
– "why can't we all just get along?“
– Pronunciation
– Interfaces
– Function points
Results from November survey
COSYSMO Risk module
2:30 <<BREAK>>
3:00 Continuity in systems engineering
SystemStar update
5:00 adjourn

Barry Boehm (USC)
Jim Cain (BAE Systems)
Robert Culbertson (Cisco)
Indrajeet Dixit (USC)
Madeline Ellis (Boeing)
Allan Fong (MIT)
Gary Hafen (Lockheed Martin)
Ray Hunnicutt (Lockheed Martin)
Tony Jordano (SAIC)
Jim Lambert (Cisco)
Dan Ligett (SoftStar Systems)
Miles Nesman (Boeing)
Ali Nikolai (SAIC)
Cindy Nikolai (US AF/Notre Dame)
Barbara Park (Boeing)
Shawn Rahani (Boeing)
Karen Richardson (Aerospace Corp)
Scott Rigby (Raytheon)
Garry Roedler (Lockheed Martin)
Howard Schimmoller (Lockheed Martin)
George Stratton (Raytheon)
Gary Thomas (Raytheon)
Richard Turner (SSCI)
Gan Wang (BAE Systems)
Da Yang (USC)
RED = attended a previous workshop

• Valerdi, R., Gaffney, J., Roedler, G., Rieff, J., “Extensions of COSYSMO to Represent
Reuse,” 21 st Forum on COCOMO and Software Cost Modeling, November 2006.
• Valerdi, R., Gaffney, J., “Reducing Risk and Uncertainty in COSYSMO Size and Cost
Drivers: Some Techniques for Enhancing Accuracy,” Conference on Systems
Engineering Research, April 2007.
• Valerdi, R., Rieff, J., Roedler, G., Wheaton, M., Wang, G., “Lessons Learned from
Industrial Validation of COSYSMO,” INCOSE Symposium 2007.
• Boehm, B., Valerdi, R., Honour, E., “The ROI of Systems Engineering: Some
Quantitative Results,” INCOSE Symposium 2007.
• Valerdi, R., Miller, C., “From Research to Reality: Making COSYSMO A Trusted
Estimation Tool In Your Organization,” INCOSE Symposium 2007. (plus tutorial)
• Valerdi, R., “Cognitive Limits of Software Cost Estimation,” submitted to Empirical
Software Engineering and Measurement, 2007.
•
Valerdi, R., academicCOSYSMO User Manual v1.0, MIT Technical Report, July 2006.
• Valerdi, R., Systems Engineering Cost Estimation with COSYSMO, in progress.
www.valerdi.com/cosysmo

Conceptualize
Conceptualize and Develop
Conceptualize,
Develop, and OT&E

COSYSMO = 100 PM
Historical data = 110 PM
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
90 94 98
102 106 110 114
Person Months
118 122 126 130
12
10
8
6
4
2
COSYSMO = 1,000 PM
Historical data = 1,100 PM
0
900 940 980
1020 1060 1100 1140
Person Months
1180 1220 1260 1300
COSYSMO = 100 PM
Historical data = 110 PM
COSYSMO = 1,000 PM
Historical data = 1,100 PM

Personnel/team capability
Basic intellectual capability of a Systems Engineer (compared to the national pool of SEs) to analyze complex problems and synthesize solutions.
Very Low
15 th percentile
Low
35 th percentile
Nominal
55 th percentile
High
75 th percentile
Very High
90 th percentile
Personnel experience/continuity
The applicability and consistency of the staff at the initial stage of the project with respect to the domain, customer, user, technology, tools, etc.
Experience
Annual
Turnover
Very low Low
Less than 2 months 1 year continuous experience, other technical experience in similar job
Nominal
3 years of continuous experience
48% 24% 12%
High
5 years of continuous experience
6%
Very High
10 years of continuous experience
3%

• What inhibits the continuity of a systems engineer?
• What facilitates the continuity of a systems engineer?

• Communication Problems
• Geographical Location
• Project/System Preference
• Domain Expertise
• Small vs. Big Organizations
• Continuity is a double edged sword
• Personnel criteria should not be
“personal”, but instead needs to be
“team”

• COSYSMO knowledge exchange event
– Tuesday March 6, 2007 (Cambridge, MA)
• COSYSMO Adoption tutorial
– week of June 25, 2007 (San Diego, CA)
• COSYSMO workshop
– week of October 22, 2007 (Los Angeles, CA)
– Possibly week of October 29, 2007?