IN THIS APPENDIX

Countless times I have heard presenters and consultants alike dodge the issue of estimating person-hours and completion dates for project deliverables. Unfortunately, estimating project deliverable timelines isn't an easy proposition. Most of us, including me, typically use our own personal rule-of-thumb approaches to come up with estimates. The more software development one does, the more accurate this approach is. But regardless of the level of skill, a better approach is necessary to account for personal biases, as well as for projects that don't have a staff with a wealth of experience.

Rational Software acquired Ivar Jacobson's Objectory AB in 1995. Along with that purchase came the excellent research conducted by Gustav Karner, then of Objectory AB, in estimating person-hours for software projects on the basis of use-cases. Although this work was based on earlier work by Allan Albrecht using function point analysis, it brought unique insight because it used artifacts that were derived directly from the use-case.

The Objectory Process is based on four separate inputs: