Costar & SystemStar
Estimation Tools
Dan Ligett
Softstar Systems
Ligett@SoftstarSystems.com
http://www.SoftstarSystems.com
(603) 672-0987
Softstar History
Look to the past for clues about the future:
• 21 years
• DOS, VMS, Solaris, Win 3, Win 95, Win
98, Win NT, Win 2000, Win XP…
• Hundreds and hundreds of customers
• 21 COCOMO Meetings
Technical Support
• Free, unlimited, technical support
– Phone, fax, e-mail, website, FAQ
– Modeling issues
– COCOMO & COSYSMO questions & interpretations
– Calibration techniques
– Estimating methods, line counting, etc.
• How can we do that?
– The software is excellent
– The GUI is excellent
– The help system is excellent
Costar Features
• Incremental COCOMO
• COCOMO II
• COCOMO 81, REVIC
• Many reports & graphs
• Export to Excel
• Schedule Constraints
• Calico for calibration
– Add phases, activities, cost drivers, defaults
• It’s COCOMO – open, studied, validated, known
Costar Licensing
• Single User License
– Inexpensive way to introduce COCOMO
• Site License
– No per seat charges, all employees at a site get Costar
• Worldwide Corporate License
– No per seat charges, all employees get Costar
– Standard estimating method, tools, training, file
formats, etc.
– About 19 cents each for LMCO-sized company
• One time fee – not an annual charge!
SystemStar Features
• Estimates Systems Engineering Effort
• Based on the COSYSMO model
• ISO 15288 framework
• 14 reports & graphs
• Reuse Model
• Exports to Excel
• Calibration tool included
• Free Technical Support
SystemStar Licensing
• Site License
• Worldwide Corporate License
– No per seat charges, all employees get
SystemStar
– Standard estimating method, tools,
training, file formats, etc.
• Annual Fee
Estimate Systems Engineering Effort
Easy to Adjust Cost Drivers
Effort per Activity per Phase
Effort & Cost per Phase