Comparison of estimation methods of cost and duration in IT projects

Producing accurate and reliable project cost estimations at an early stage of a project’s life cycle remains a substantial challenge in the information technology field. This research benchmarks the performance of various approaches to estimating IT project effort and duration. Empirical data were gathered from various “real-world” organizations including several prominent Israeli high-tech companies as well as from the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) IT project database. The study contrasts two types of models that have been employed to estimate project duration and effort separately: linear regression estimation models and models deriving from a more novel approach based on artificial neural networks (ANNs).