Understanding the influential factors to development effort in Chinese software industry

A good understanding of the influential factors to software development effort and further precise effort estimate are undoubtedly crucial to any cost-effective and controllable software development projects. In most effort estimation researches, a large dataset is always a necessary basis of estimation modeling, model calibration and method validation. Among them, different attributes and characteristics of project data will to a large extent affect the applicable scope of particular research result. This research aims to identify the factors that significantly influence development effort, and to investigate how the influence works in Chinese software industry. In this study, six factors and their relationships to development effort are analyzed, prioritized and discussed based upon the dataset recording 999 projects from 140 software organizations in China. In terms of our analysis and findings, some suggestions for effort estimation and control are extracted to assist software practitioners in coping with various types of software projects.