After the success of the IWSM Mensura conference last year, we’ve decided to organize another conference this year but online.

The conference is free of cost and takes place via Zoom on November 25 from 2pm CET till 6pm CET. This years conference will focus on Software Cost Estimation, which is playing an increasingly important role in IT and the role that sizing plays. The presentation slides will be published at SlideShare. The presentation recordings will be published on YouTube.

Conference program

14:00 – 14:10 Opening – Eric van der Vliet, Nesma

14:10 – 14:40  Size Matters … A lot – Rick Collins, Technomics
Rick Collins is Technical Director of Technomics, Inc., an employee-owned consulting firm offering a range of decision analysis services to U.S. and foreign government clients.

Size is a critical input variable for cost estimators, serving as a basis for: 1) effort and schedule estimating and 2) corresponding risk analysis. In his presentation, Rick will discuss these and specifically the factors that contribute to effort/cost and schedule growth. The underlying theme of the presentation will be the importance of creating sizing estimates are grounded in historical data to the maximum extent possible.

14:45 – 15:10 Bridging the gap – Rob de Munnik, Belastingdienst (Dutch Tax Office)
Rob de Munnik is an Estimation Consultant at Dutch Tax Office.

Currently, Function points may be the only available Functional Sizing Measure that is broadly supported. In many cases the use of FP is prescribed, even mandatory. Using some examples Rob will give an overview of how the Dutch Tax Office uses FP internally and in supplier contracts.

15:15 – 15:40  A benchmark based approach to determine language verbosity – Hans Kuijpers and Lodewijk Bergmans, Software Improvement Group (SIG)
Hans Kuijpers works as a Managing Consultant and Lodewijk Bergmans is Sr. Researcher at the Software Improvement Group (SIG).

Usually we use Function Points (FP) to estimate the size of projects. To estimate the effort and cost we use a productivity factor per programming language. These factors are often derived from the SPR-table. But the SPR-table has not been maintained since 2007 and many new languages have seen the light of day since, and many will emerge. In their presentation, Hans and Lodewijk will illustrate how language levels can be used to aggregate the size of code bases consisting of multiple programming languages. They conclude with a perspective how this approach can be used as a basis for software cost estimation, and compare it to the SPR-table from Capers-Jones.

15:45 – 16:10  Estimation of a Micro Services based Estimation application – Bhawna Thakur, CGI
Bhawna has over 19 years of experience with IT program management, project implementation and participation in RFPs. She worked on the development of estimation tools, establish metrics and benchmarking in international organizations. She is currently working at CGI’s Global Estimation Centre. 

This presentation is about a practical case of sizing a Micro Services based estimation application and the creation of a cost estimate. It will show the validation steps that were required to achieve a reliable effort and schedule which resulted in sizing guidelines for Micro Services.

16:16 – 16:25 Break

16:25 – 16:45  Results IWSM Software Estimation challenge – Diederik Wortmann, Metri
Diederik works as a consultant at Metri.

As part of this year’s IWSM conference a Software Estimation Challenge was organized. In this first edition three practitioner teams competed in non-adversary mode to estimate the effort to build and implement a Java web application to maintain a movie collection. This gave the Metri team the opportunity to demonstrate our estimation capabilities and have fun doing that. During his presentation, Diederik will share both the idea behind the competition and the way the Metri team dealt with the challenge to give you an idea what you’re up against when you join next year’s follow-up.

16:50 – 17:15 Software Sizing – The Cornerstone for SCEBoK (Software Cost Estimating Body of Knowledge) – Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies
Carol Dekkers is founder and CEO of Quality Plus Technologies, Inc. and has over 25 years of experience helping companies who want to succeed with software measurement.

This presentation introduces the new ICEAA (International Cost Estimation and Analysis Association) SCEBoK, and highlights the foundational role of software sizing. Learn how software sizing experts can enhance and grow their career toolkit by considering SCEBoK.

17:20 – 17:50 Software Sizing As A Essential Measure: Past, Present, and Future – Dan Galorath, Galorath
Mr. Galorath has been involved with engineering, estimating and analysis for 40 years. He founded, grew and still runs Galorath Inc. as its CEO today.

During his presentation he will discuss the sizing approximation methods of the 80’s, the use of size for new and update programs today, and the uses of sizing for evaluating open source and other software.

17:55 – 18:00 Closure – Eric van der Vliet, Nesma.

Registration for the online conference

Are you interested in attending the free online Software Cost Estimation conference? Click here to register.