The global skills and competency framework for the digital world

#1320 Software Engineering Economics change request pending

Introduction of an additional skill covering economics and estimation at levels 2 to 6, separate from Systems Development Management (DLMG) and considering SWEBOK 3.0 Chapter 12

SWEBOK 3.0 contains Chapter 12 – Software Engineering Economics. In the SFIA Software Engineering view, this is currently mapped to the Systems Development Management (DLMG) skill.

Software Economics covers a number of areas not evident in the current DLMG skill:

  • Estimation of software activities – for example in story points
  • Re-use of existing software artefacts, external or internal
  • Reporting of the economic state of the project
  • Licensing
  • Bandwidth cost
  • Infrastructure and software development environments – on premises or cloud?
  • Recruitment
  • Subscriptions mechanisms, in game purchases
  • Advert supported models
  • Charging model for the software initial installation and updates
  • Fees to credit card processors or payment providers, including PayPal
  • Usage of remote development/compilation environments or build servers
  • Cloud deployments – in particular careful consideration is required by Software Architects on the selection of the tools available on appropriate cloud services (eg Azure) and the associated costs
  • Accreditation, regulatory and certification requirements for the market

The applicability of these considerations is across all levels from 2 to 6, with the high level roles responsible for decisions affecting the core business economics and strategy, down to software engineers at the lower level providing estimates for completion of work items.

Software Estimation is a subject that has attracted a number of academic models beyond comparison to previous projects and expert judgement, including the parametric COCOMO. Skills and thoughts in these areas have evolved over time, but even at the early career stage individual at Level 1 will start to participate in estimation exercise, planning poker and so on, which have an effect on the economics of the software project.

Proposed change applies to Skills

Current status of this request: pending

What we decided

Retain this CR so we can monitor developments to see whether this justifies a separate SFIA skill.