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Coping with the Cone of Uncertainty: An Empirical Study of the SAIV Process Model

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Abstract

There is large uncertainty with the software cost in the early stages of software development due to requirement volatility, incomplete understanding of product domain, reuse opportunities, market change, etc. This makes it an increasingly challenging issue to deliver software on time, within budget, and with satisfactory quality in the IT field. In this paper, we introduce the Schedule as Independent Variable (SAIV) approach, and present the empirical study of how it is used to cope with the uncertainty of cost, and deliver customer satisfactory products in 8 USC (University of Southern California) projects. We also investigate the success factors and best practices in managing the uncertainty of cost.

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant Nos. 60573082 and 60473060; the National Hi-Tech Research and Development Plan of China under Grant No. 2006AA01Z185; the National Key Technologies R&D Program under Grant No. 2005BA113A01.

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Qing Wang Dietmar Pfahl David M. Raffo

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Yang, D., Boehm, B., Yang, Y., Wang, Q., Li, M. (2007). Coping with the Cone of Uncertainty: An Empirical Study of the SAIV Process Model. In: Wang, Q., Pfahl, D., Raffo, D.M. (eds) Software Process Dynamics and Agility. ICSP 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4470. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72426-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72426-1_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-72425-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-72426-1

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