Software Cost Estimation is Like the Bowl Championship Series Rattings

Software Cost Estimation is Like the Bowl Championship Series Rattings

Know your college football? Hmmm, pick a year and name the NCAA football champion.

2008-Florida? 1986-Penn State? 1962-USC? Nope, Nope, and Nope!

No matter what year you selected you were wrong! The NCAA does not formally determine a champion for this category. But, since a gazillion dollars depends upon those bragging rights – the Bowl Champion Series (BCS) was invented. And like a software estimate – it’s been almost as popular!

The BCS computer solution was suppose to be so simple; let the computer pick the best option using statistics, add a dash erudite pontification (pollsters), stir in a seasoned splash of professional gesticulation (Coaches) and voila – an estimate of the two best teams in college football! Yes indeed, that sounds exactly like a software estimate!

The BCS scoring process uses a combination of computer tabulations and two disparate polls to determine team interim rankings, and then to identify the best two college football teams to play the “BCS” National Championship Game. The winner of this game is named the “BCS national champion.” (Not NCAA Champion!)

In BCS banter one will hear expressions like non-linear equations, standard deviation, and the Bayesian approach. Wow – that’s similar to software estimation speak. Hmm, maybe they are on to something. What if we did a software estimate like the BCS picks the best college football teams in the nation. Our premise for the typical corporate software estimate will be to determine the best cost and schedule. For the BCS – we pick the best gate attraction (income) and post bowl game extravaganza!

The Recipe!

Software Estimation Inputs

* How well did we build this the last time? (Historical Data (though likely not collected))
* What are thoughts of the senior staff? (Senior Management – 1/2)
* What do the programmers think? (Developer estimate – 1/8)
* Identify the Platform and Application, factor in the size, calculate industry averages, sieve through the parametric settings, insert Monte Carlo simulation, offset for risk confidence and schedule probability, … (Parametric estimate – 1/3)

BCS Calculation Inputs

* What did the teams do last year? (Previous year rankings)
* What do other pollsters think? (Harris Interactive Poll – 1/3)
* What do the people in the trenches think? (Coaches Poll – 1/3)
* Drop highest and lowest ranking of each team divide by 100, for maximum possible points (Computer rankings – 1/3)

That’s it for the BCS calculations – 1/3 * 1/3 * 1/3 = an answer. But alas – the BCS formula has come under dire – or dare I say – “political” scrutiny. In fact, in October of 2009, when his school was excluded from a previous year BCS bowl game, Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, said in a 10-page letter to President Obama calling for an antitrust probe of the BCS.

”Mr. President, as you have publicly stated on multiple occasions, the BCS system is in dire need of reform,”… “If the government can look at the concentration of money in railroads, telecommunications and software developers, then why not the big business of college sports in America?”

Software Developers??? – Yikes

In a BCS system where you have nearly a full Delphi approach – from coaches and pollsters – and then add in a computer statistical model – the computer gets blamed! No wonder software estimates are so mistrusted. While everyone knows that a parametric model is essential to making a reasonable software cost estimate it is nearly always often overridden by the objections of senior management who wish to also override those pesky “optimistic programmers.”

Has anyone considered this? The BCS by default was flawed. It excludes all but six original signers to the BCS covenant (plus Notre Dame and a few others). Without all the teams considered – without all the weightings of records and wins – and without all the scores somehow magically factored – no one will ever be happy. Kind of like a software estimate that ignores history and trends… No one ever thinks the project will take that long – until it does.

Until then, does anyone have Senators Hatch’s number?