Software renewal process comprehension using dynamic effort estimation

The paper presents a method for dynamic effort estimation, together with its supporting tool, and experimental validation on a renewal project of a very aged software system. Method characteristics such as dynamic tuning and fine granularity allow the tool to quickly react to process variations. The experimental validation shows how the combination of meaningful predictors and fine grain calibration is effective for understanding the enacted process and its implicit changes, or controlling the efficacy of explicit process changes. The study also confirms that the estimation model is process-dependent and then cannot be reused for other processes, albeit similar.