A Method for Calculating Acknowledged Project Effort Using a Quality Index

Software size is the fundamental metric for project planning. Effort and duration are calculated based on the size estimate. However, for a given software size, the actual development effort could be significantly different. The question is whether the increase in effort is due to the low productivity of the development team or higher product quality. While higher product quality is highly desirable and usually worth investing in, the reasons for additional effort might be elsewhere. In the research presented in this paper, the focus is on the correlation between code quality and productivity. Code quality is only one aspect of product quality. This paper presents a method for calculating a new type of project effort named “acknowledged effort”. Acknowledged effort is calculated based on the actual effort and code quality. This new type of effort reflects not only the project’s size and the productivity of the development team, but also the quality aspect of the delivered software system. Povzetek: V prispevku je analizrana korelacija med kakovostjo programske kode in produktivnostjo.