Software engineering economics: background, current practices, and future directions

The field of software economics seeks to develop technical theories, guidelines, and practices of software development based on sound, established, and emerging models of value and value-creation - adapted to the domain of software development as necessary. The premise of the field is that software development is an ongoing investment activity - in which developers and managers continually make investment decisions requiring the expenditure of valuable resources, such as time, talent, and money. The overriding aim of this activity is to maximize the value added subject to an equitable distribution among the participating stakeholders. The goal of the paper is to expose the audience to this line of thinking and introduce the tools pertinent to its pursuit. The paper is designed to be self-contained and will cover concepts from introductory to advanced. Both practitioners and researchers with an interest in the impact of value considerations in software decision-making will benefit from attending it.