An approach to schedule estimation and tracking for rapid development projects

The paper deals with schedule estimation for rapid development software projects based on a constructive cost model and fine grain tracking implemented by miniature milestones. Rapid development environments suitable for small and medium size new products on open platforms, as well as the products on proprietary platforms achievable with small design changes of the existing software, have been defined. Proposed is a life cycle combining waterfall model with phase overlapping for early development phases, and incremental build for late development phases. Estimation and tracking models are described, as well as a case study of a real project on Internet/WWW/Java platform.