Over time I'll write a lot of posts about estimating the time and cost of software development projects, but for now I just want to list some of the estimating variables that are in the the (old) Cocomo II software application:

• Analyst capability
• Applications experience
• Database size
• Developed for reuse
• Documentation
• Execution time
• Language/tool experience
• Multisite development
• Personnel continuity
• Platform experience
• Platform volatility
• Product complexity
• Programmer capability
• Required reliability
• Required schedule
• Software tools

Cocomo II uses these parameters to help predict the cost of a software application. Some are straight multipliers, some work at the exponent level, and all are customizable. What I mean by "customizable" is that the application has several built-in values for each parameter -- think of them as low, medium, and high -- but over time you should have multipliers of your own, tuned to your own history of software development projects.

The important thing about these variables for this particular post is that I want to present them here for you to think about when you're estimating time, cost, and manpower for your next big software application. When you're doing that think of these parameters, and then try to decide for yourself which one is most important, which one is least important, and their relative weights.