Agile Estimation using CAEA: A Comparative Study of Agile Projects Shilpa Bhalerao 1 , Maya Ingle 1+ 1 Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, M.P. India Abstract. Agile estimation approach has been a subject of active interest during the recent years due to volatile requirements of projects. Constructive Agile Estimation Algorithm (CAEA) is an algorithmic approach for estimation of cost, size and duration of project. It incorporates various vital factors namely; performance, complex processing, configuration, security, data transfer, operation ease, project domain and multiple sites. All these factors require extra efforts in development of the software thereby increasing the cost, size and duration of the project. We have estimated 87 projects from various domains to study the usefulness of CAEA for agile estimation. These projects have been classified in eight categories based upon the number of vital factors having high intensity values. It has been observed that CAEA has generated the more realistic results and eliminated the need of experienced team members and historical data. It has been noticed that CAEA is more useful in case of higher number of vital factors having high intensity values. CAEA is a step toward integrating engineering practices in agile methodology in a lighter way. Keywords: Agile methodology, agile estimation, Constructive Agile Estimation Algorithm (CAEA), story points, planning poker. 1. Introduction Agile methodology has become the main stream of software development due to its ability to generate higher customer satisfaction. It is fast and flexible methodology that recommends to incorporating last minute changes and requirements provided by the customer at any stage of software development phase [1] [2]. The ability to accept last minute changes generated the need of different way to estimate the Cost, Size and Duration (CSD) of project [3][4][5]. Agile estimation approach is a subject of active interest during the recent years due to its usefulness in mobile and internet technology. It is categorized in non-algorithmic and algorithmic approach and both approaches use story points as a unit for CSD estimation of agile projects. Non-algorithmic approaches include expert opinion, analogy and disaggregation that require experts and historical data to estimate precisely [7] [8]. These approaches may generate different estimates for same project depending on intuition of estimators [15]. On contrary, algorithmic approach such as Constructive Agile Estimation Algorithm (CAEA) incorporates vital factors for story point evaluation and generates the estimation based upon this computed new story points [6]. It includes the vital factors such as performance, complex processing, security and multiple sites etc. that affect the CSD estimation of an agile project. It has been observed that algorithmic methods generate more realistic estimates and also eliminate the need of experts [6]. We have attempted to analyze the usefulness of CAEA in this paper by estimating various application domain projects of small size. Section 2 provides the background of the work by defining CAEA and terminology algorithm in brief. Section 3 highlights the case studies considered for analyzing the usefulness of CAEA and results and conclusion of the study are presented in Section 4. + S. Bhalerao. Tel.: + (9109826687066); fax: +(912761358). E-mail address: (bhalerao.shilpa@gmail.com) + M. Ingle. Tel.: + (9109893278823); fax: +(912761358). E-mail address: (maya_ingle@rediffmail.com). 76 2009 International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications IPCSIT vol.2 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Singapore