Optimizing Software Effort Estimation Models Using Firefly Algorithm
This work addresses software project management challenges by improving estimation accuracy, though it is incremental as it applies an existing optimization method to known models.
The paper tackled the problem of software development effort estimation by using the Firefly Algorithm to optimize parameters of COCOMO-based models, resulting in high accuracy and significant error minimization compared to other metaheuristic algorithms like Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization.
Software development effort estimation is considered a fundamental task for software development life cycle as well as for managing project cost, time and quality. Therefore, accurate estimation is a substantial factor in projects success and reducing the risks. In recent years, software effort estimation has received a considerable amount of attention from researchers and became a challenge for software industry. In the last two decades, many researchers and practitioners proposed statistical and machine learning-based models for software effort estimation. In this work, Firefly Algorithm is proposed as a metaheuristic optimization method for optimizing the parameters of three COCOMO-based models. These models include the basic COCOMO model and other two models proposed in the literature as extensions of the basic COCOMO model. The developed estimation models are evaluated using different evaluation metrics. Experimental results show high accuracy and significant error minimization of Firefly Algorithm over other metaheuristic optimization algorithms including Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization.