Could social factors influence the effort software estimation?

Abstract

Effort estimation is often influenced by several factors, including social. This study aims at understanding the interactions between social factors and effort during effort estimation. I want to analyze the dynamics that occur when a developer estimates the effort for a specific task and the influence of the work team and the work conditions. I conducted a semi-structured interview among three different projects with different developers working in Agile and Scrum processes, asking them which factors and social aspects they take in to account when they estimate the effort during the development processes. Results show an important influence of social factors during the effort estimation phase, and call for future works for a large scale Survey for a more accurate identification.