Intermediate COCOMO model

The basic COCOMO model assumes that effort and development time are functions of the product size
alone. However, a host of other project parameters besides the product size affect the effort required to
develop the product as well as the development time. Therefore, in order to obtain an accurate
estimation of the effort and project duration, the effect of all relevant parameters must be taen into
account. The intermediate COCOMO model reco!nizes this fact and refines the initial estimate obtained
usin! the basic COCOMO e"pressions b# usin! a set of $% cost drivers &multipliers' based on various
attributes of software development. Then, dependin! on these ratin!s, he su!!ests appropriate cost
driver values which should be multiplied with the initial estimate obtained usin! the basic COCOMO. In
!eneral, the cost drivers can be classified as bein! attributes of the followin! items(
Cost drivers
(i) Product Attributes
_ required s/w reliability
_ Size of application database
_ Complexity of te product
(ii) !ardware Attributes
_ "un time performance constraints
_ #emory constraints
_ $irtual macine volatility
_ %urnaround time
(iii) Personal Attributes
_ Analyst capability
_ Pro&rammer capability
_ Application experience
_ $irtual m/c experience
_ Pro&rammin& lan&ua&e experience
(iv) Pro'ect Attributes
_ #odern pro&rammin& practices
_ (se of software tools
_ "equired development Scedule