Estimation of information systems development efforts

This study attempts to identify estimation methods, underlying variables and factors that can be used to improve estimates of information system development efforts. To accomplish this, 89 development projects from 63 organizations were analyzed. The results indicate that (1) qualitative methods are related to accurate estimates, (2) the relationships between the factors, the underlying variables, and the accuracy of the estimate vary among development phases and generally tend to improve based upon the phase at which the estimate is made, and (3) the proportion of variance in the accuracy of the estimates explained by the factors increases dependent upon the phase at which the estimate is made.