A review of effort estimation studies in agile, iterative and incremental software development

Abstract

This paper presents the results of systematically reviewing the current research literature on effort estimation in agile, iterative and incremental software projects (AIISPs). The primary purpose is to show evidences about common trends, gaps and recommendations for future studies. The results were limited to peer-reviewed conference papers/journal articles, written in English and published before 2013. The synthesis was made through classifying the papers based on different properties. The analysis indicates the need for future research on: 1) estimating effort for the remaining AIISPs, 2) analyzing the impact of properties of historical/current project data, 3) using benchmark data, 4) using composite models and 5) further empirical validation of the estimation models.