Cost percentage of different phases in development cycle

Sanjay K Gupta

I dont know whether this type of question is suitable for this forum or not, but just share your experience. In a software product development cylcle, what would be cost percentage of different phases? As per my estimation it may be. 60% Understanding Req, Analysis, Design Database, UI Design, Coding, Maintenance 40% Testing, Documentation, Support, Demo, Installation, Training

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Mark_Wallace

Not 85% meetings, 15% work?

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

OriginalGriff

Lunches with PM 15.0%
Mistakes 30.0%
Bacon 17.3%
Blood 11.2%
Sweat 14.8%
Tears 18.3%

Total: 106.6%

(They always overrun)

The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

Johnny J

Surfing gay porn? Erudite Eric is in charge of that, I understand... ;P

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vonb

30% Analysis - Startup meetings 20% Wait time to get aproval of analysis from boss 30% Development 20% Wait time to get aproval of product from user / boss === 100% There is never time for testing...

OriginalGriff

Has never appeared in the costs for any of my developments so I can't assign a percentage to it. All the others have (and with one notable exception, none of my projects have ever involved looking at pr0n, straight or gay)

The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

Rob Grainger

vonb wrote:

There is never time for testing...

I shudder. Why not use that last 20%, rather than sitting on your nubs.

"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

This is covered in the first chapter of every software engineering book ... ever. And for a hint, maintenance alone is the single largest factor period and development the smallest.

Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch

Stefan_Lang

It depends on the software development process you use (e. g. Agile, Unified Process, XP...) and to some degree on the size of the project. Typical numbers include about 20-30% preparatory stages such as Req. Analysis and initial architectural design, and 30-40% actual coding (including basic testing). The rest goes to testing, documentation, deployment, etc.. As a rule of thumb, take a look at the requirements and estimate the time to code, then extrapolate from that number (multiply by three) to get a total. Don't forget to add some margin - you do want to make a profit, don't you? ;) Depending on how well you know the customer you may want to add a little more, in anticipation of requirement changes that will come (or make your customer pay extra for every change; but that may not be a good basis to build a good relationship and obtain more contracts in the future) Well, of course that's the theory - you'll find that software projects can easily differ from such estimates by a factor of 2 or more. It takes some experience to get the estimates right. Btw., the above does not include maintenance since most projects list it separately on a per year basis, but I've found that about 5-10% of the total price per year is generally accepted, whether or not that covers your real cost (you might wonder whether it does, but it really depends on the project and the requirements)