Q. Software project planning necessitate what activities? What are the difficulties encountered in measuring the Software Costs?

Ans. Software project planning necessitate the following activities

• Estimation:

• - Resource, Effort, cost and project duration

• Project scheduling
• Staff organization

• -staffing plans

• Risk handling

• - analysis, identification and abatement procedures

• Miscellaneous plans

• -quality assurance plan as well as configuration management plan and so on.

Software costs are because of the requirement for hardware, software and human resources. One is able to perform cost estimation at any point in the software life cycle.

Since the cost of software depends on the nature and characteristics of the project the accuracy of estimate will depend on the amount of dependable information we have about the final product. Consequently when the product is delivered the costs can be actually determined as everything spend is known by then. Nevertheless when the software is being initiated or during feasible study we have only some idea about the functionality of software. There is extremely high uncertainty about the tangible specifications of the system hence cost estimations based on uncertain information cannot be accurate.