Software cost estimation inhibitors—a case study in automotive context

As cost estimation is an important yet problematic part of project planning there is a need of process improvement to decrease the estimation errors. This paper has two purposes. Based on a qualitative case study conducted at a Swedish automotive company it describes the process of cost estimation in a real-life setting focusing on inhibitors to accurate cost estimates. Second, the results of this study are compared with four other studies with a similar purpose of concluding that a company-specific investigation of cost estimation inhibitors might give more actionable input to the activity of cost estimation process improvement than a more general investigation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This paper presents inhibitors to the process of cost estimation found in an explorative interview study. Comparing this and five other studies with similar purpose a lack of results overlap was discovered. Thus, we suggest that in order to understand and improve the practice of cost estimation, practitioners might gain more actionable insight from a company-specific investigation than from the results of a more general one. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.