A Study of Uncertainty in Software Cost and Its Impact on Optimal Software Release Time
A Study of Uncertainty in Software Cost and Its Impact on Optimal Software Release Time
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DOI：
10.1109/tse.2008.47
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发表时间：
2008-11
影响因子：
7.4
通讯作者：
Bo Yang;Huajun Hu;Lixin Jia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bo Yang;Huajun Hu;Lixin Jia
对于一个软件开发项目，管理层经常面临着何时停止测试软件并将其发布运行的两难境地，这需要谨慎的决策，因为这对软件可靠性和项目成本都有很大影响。在已有的最优软件发布问题研究中，考虑的成本是项目的预期成本。然而，管理层关心的是项目的实际成本(AC)，而不是EC。由于空调中涉及的不确定性(可变性)，EC的处理(如最小化)可能不能确保所需的低AC水平。本文详细研究了软件成本的不确定性及其对软件最优发布时间的影响。不确定性由AC和几个风险函数的方差来量化。针对软件最优发布问题，提出了一种风险控制方法。发展了问题的新公式，这些公式是现有公式的扩展，并建立了求解程序。文中给出了几个算例。结果表明，在最优软件发布问题中，考虑软件成本的不确定性似乎是至关重要的；否则，可能会得出不安全的决策，这可能是管理层的一个虚假曙光。
For a software development project, management often faces the dilemma of when to stop testing the software and release it for operation, which requires careful decision making as it has great impact on both software reliability and project cost. In most existing research on the optimal software release problem, the cost considered was the Expected Cost (EC) of the project. However, what concerns management is the Actual Cost (AC) of the project rather than the EC. Treatment (such as minimization) of the EC may not ensure the desired low level of the AC due to the uncertainty (variability) involved in the AC. In this paper, we study the uncertainty in software cost and its impact on optimal software release time in detail. The uncertainty is quantified by the variance of the AC and several risk functions. A risk-control approach to the optimal software release problem is proposed. New formulations of the problem which are extensions of current formulations are developed and solution procedures are established. Several examples are presented. Results reveal that it seems crucial to take into account the uncertainty in software cost in the optimal software release problem; otherwise, unsafe decisions may be reached which could be a false dawn to management.