SOFTWARE EFFORT ESTIMATION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Abstract

Without sufficient effort, the development of a software project will be hindered and may even significantly fail, thus jeopardizing the quality of the software developers. Therefore, Software Effort Estimation (SEE) is a crucial activity in software engineering. Numerous studies have been conducted on SEE, resulting in a significant amount of new literature in a very short time. To gain a comprehensive understanding of current trends and frameworks in Software Effort Estimation (SEE) research, identifying the key areas of study is crucial. This research employed a systematic literature review (SLR) as a comprehensive approach to uncovering and analyzing all the prominent research topics within this domain. Six research topics were identified from 60 journals, including algorithmic techniques, machine learning implementation, statistical approaches, expert judgment, dataset analysis, and metric evaluation. The algorithmic techniques and machine learning approaches are the most frequently discussed topics