The Role of Judgment in Software Estimation Steven Fraser Panel Impresario Director, Cisco Research Center Cisco Systems San Jose, CA. USA sdfraser@ieee.org Barry Boehm Professor & Director USC Center for Software Engineering Los Angeles, CA. USA boehm@cse.usc.edu Hakan Erdogmus Senior Research Officer Software Engineering Group National Research Council Ottawa, ON. Canada Hakan.Erdogmus@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Magne Jørgensen Professor & Research Scientist Simula Research Center Lysaker, Norway magnej@simula.no Steve McConnell CEO & Chief Software Engineer Construx Software Bellevue, WA. USA steve.mcconnell@construx.com Stan Rifkin Principal Master Systems Carlsbad, CA. USA sr@master-systems.com Abstract Consequences of poor (or good) judgment in es- timation are reflected in software quality, cost, time-to-market, and operational reliability. While judgment plays a prominent role in aviation and medicine – the same care arguably needs to be taken in making trade-offs impacting software development. This panel will bring together practi- tioners to discuss aspects of judgment in software estimation including a discussion of current prac- tices and influences from other disciplines 1. Steven Fraser, Panel Impresario STEVEN FRASER recently joined the Cisco Research Center in 2007 with responsibilities for developing and managing university research relations. Prior to joining Cisco, Steve held a variety of technical management roles at Qualcomm (San Diego), Nortel (Santa Clara), the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at CMU (Pittsburgh), and at BNR (Ottawa). Steve has held a variety of leadership positions for the ACM’s OOP- SLA, the IEEE’s ICSE and the XP200N series of soft- ware conferences. Steve holds a doctorate (Electrical Engineering) from McGill University in Montréal – and is a member of the ACM and a senior member of the IEEE. 2. Barry Boehm BARRY BOEHM is the TRW Professor of Software Engineering, in the Computer Science Department, and Director of the USC Center for Software Engineering. Barry Boehm served within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) from 1989 to 1992 as director of the DARPA Information Science and Technology Office and as director of the DDR&E Software and Computer Technology Office. He worked at TRW from 1973 to 1989, culminating as chief scientist of the Defense Sys- tems Group, and at the Rand Corporation from 1959 to 1973, culminating as head of the Information Sciences Department. He entered the software field at General Dynamics in 1955. His current research interests involve recasting soft- ware engineering into a value-based framework, includ- ing processes, methods, and tools for value-based soft- ware definition, architecting, development, validation, and evolution. His contributions to the field include the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO), the Spiral Model of the software process, and the Theory W (win- win) approach to software management and require- ments determination. He has received the ACM Distin- guished Research Award in Software Engineering and the IEEE Harlan Mills Award, and an honorary ScD in Computer Science from the University of Massachu- setts. He is a Fellow of the primary professional so- cieties in computing (ACM), aerospace (AIAA), elec- tronics (IEEE), and systems engineering (INCOSE), and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engi- neering. 3. Hakan Erdogmus HAKAN ERDOGMUS is a senior research officer in the Software Engineering Group at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada, an adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary, and the editor in chief of IEEE Software. His