Quantifying the Quality of Trend Lines

Abstract

Apparatus and articles of manufacture for quantifying the quality of trend lines include defining a collection of reference data sets derived from multiple historical projects in a similar subject area as the target project, defining one or more indicators of data set applicability to a target project estimation, said defining based on multiple characteristics of the target project, evaluating applicability of each of the reference data sets based on the one or more indicators, and identifying one or more of the reference data sets as applicable for use in the target project estimation.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An article of manufacture comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions tangibly embodied thereon which, when implemented, cause a computer to carry out a plurality of method steps comprising:
 defining a collection of reference data sets derived from multiple historical projects in a similar subject area as the target project;   defining one or more indicators of data set applicability to a target project estimation, said defining based on multiple characteristics of the target project;   evaluating applicability of each of the reference data sets based on the one or more indicators; and   identifying one or more of the reference data sets as applicable for use in the target project estimation.   
     
     
         2 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein said defining a collection of reference data sets comprises determining sufficiency for one or more historical projects for inclusion in the collection of reference data sets. 
     
     
         3 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein said defining one or more indicators comprises extracting project characteristics from a database. 
     
     
         4 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein said defining one or more indicators comprises incorporating input from an estimator component and/or a subject matter expert. 
     
     
         5 . The article of manufacture of  claim 4 , wherein said input comprises information pertaining to one or more aspects of a domain relevant to the target project. 
     
     
         6 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 defining a metric in connection with the one or more indicators.   
     
     
         7 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 determining a measure of uncertainty for each of the reference data sets.   
     
     
         8 . The article of manufacture of  claim 7 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 displaying the one or more applicable reference data sets with the one or more corresponding measures of uncertainty to a user.   
     
     
         9 . The article of manufacture of  claim 8 , wherein said displaying comprises implementation of a color-coding scheme for depicting the one or more applicable reference data sets in light of the one or more corresponding measures of uncertainty. 
     
     
         10 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 storing the one or more reference data sets identified as applicable for use in the target project estimation in a database.   
     
     
         11 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 performing the target project estimation based on the one or more reference data sets identified as applicable.   
     
     
         12 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein one of said one or more indicators represents coherence of target project environment variables in each of the reference data sets. 
     
     
         13 . The article of manufacture of  claim 12 , wherein said target project environment variables comprise one or more of industry, country, and primary language. 
     
     
         14 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein one of said one or more indicators represents a degree of evenness of project size distribution. 
     
     
         15 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein one of said one or more indicators represents a degree of uncertainty of each of the multiple data sets. 
     
     
         16 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein one of said one or more indicators represents sufficiency of a total number of projects in each of the multiple data sets. 
     
     
         17 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the method steps comprise:
 defining a set of governance rules to be associated with the one or more indicators, wherein said set of governance rules comprise rules based on characteristics of the target project and rules based on characteristics of an execution environment for which the target project estimation is to be carried out.   
     
     
         18 . The article of manufacture of  claim 17 , wherein rules based on characteristics of the target project comprise:
 a rule matching a size-counting method;   a rule matching project size; and   a rule matching development environment and language.   
     
     
         19 . The article of manufacture of  claim 17 , wherein rules based on characteristics of the execution environment comprise:
 a rule based on project duration;   a rule based on project resources; and   a rule based on project scope.   
     
     
         20 . A system for evaluating applicability of a data set for a given target project estimation, comprising:
 at least one distinct software module, each distinct software module being embodied on a tangible computer-readable medium;   a memory; and   at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative for:
 defining a collection of reference data sets derived from multiple historical projects in a similar subject area as the target project; 
 defining one or more indicators of data set applicability to a target project estimation, said defining based on multiple characteristics of the target project; 
 evaluating applicability of each of the reference data sets based on the one or more indicators; and 
 identifying one or more of the reference data sets as applicable for use in the target project estimation.