Goals

Make the issues, problems and risks found during analysis comparable by estimating or measuring their value (that’s why we call this activity evaluate):

  1. estimate the value of problems, issues, risks and their remedies,
  2. prioritize issues, their remedies and improvement measures.

Usually, evaluation implies estimation; only in few cases can you measure or observe the evaluation subject and produce hard facts.

Estimation

Evaluation Concepts Domain Model

Evaluation Domain Concepts

Domain concept Explanation Example
Estimation an approximation of any subject (here: issues, problems or remedies), which is needed because facts or real observations are not available or possible.  
Subject   a recurring problem in the system or associated processes
Parameter an important element or foundation of the estimation. • number of developers on the system
• Lines-of-Code (LOC)
Assumption a fixed setting for any parameter. See Explicit Assumption  
Observation measure, count, calculate gather real data for parameters if every developer is concerned by the problem, we count their number.
Interval see Estimate in Interval between 15% and 25%

Patterns and practices for evaluation

concept map of the evaluate patterns

  • Estimate Feature Value

    Estimate the (monetary) value of a given feature, so you can compare features of the system with each other.

  • Estimate Improvement Cost

    Determine how much a specific improvement (a set of actions taken to eliminate or reduce a specific issue or problem) is likely to cost (in money and/or effort).

  • Estimate in Interval

    Estimate in intervals, giving lower and upper bounds.

  • Estimate Issue Cost

    Find out how much a given issue costs in units of money or effort in a period or for every occurrence.