research-article

Can we build software faster and better and cheaper?

Authors:

Oussama El-Rawas,

Barry BoehmAuthors Info & Claims

PROMISE '09: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Predictor Models in Software Engineering

Article No.: 2, Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/1540438.1540442

Published: 18 May 2009 Publication History

Abstract

"Faster, Better, Cheaper" (FBC) was a development philosophy adopted by the NASA administration in the mid to late 1990s. that lead to some some dramatic successes such as Mars Pathfinder as well as a number highly publicized mission failures, such as the Mars Climate Orbiter & Polar Lander.

The general consensus on FBC was "Faster, Better, Cheaper? Pick any two". According to that view, is impossibly to optimize on all three criteria without compromising the third. This paper checks that view using an AI search tool called STAR. We show that FBC is indeed feasible and produces similar or better results when compared to other methods However, for FBC to work, there must be a balanced concern and concentration on the quality aspects of a project. If not, "FBC" becomes "CF" (cheaper and faster) with the inevitable lose in project quality.

References

[1]

D. Baker. A hybrid approach to expert and model-based effort estimation. Master's thesis, Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, 2007. Available from https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=5443.

[2]

B. Boehm. Software Engineering Economics. Prentice Hall, 1981.

Digital Library

[3]

B. Boehm. Safe and simple software cost analysis. IEEE Software, pages 14--17, September/October 2000. Available from http://www.computer.org/certification/beta/Boehm_Safe.pdf.

Digital Library

[4]

B. Boehm, E. Horowitz, R. Madachy, D. Reifer, B. K. Clark, B. Steece, A. W. Brown, S. Chulani, and C. Abts. Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II. Prentice Hall, 2000.

Digital Library

[5]

Z. Chen, T. Menzies, and D. Port. Feature subset selection can improve software cost estimation. In PROMISE'05, 2005. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/05/fsscocomo.pdf.

Digital Library

[6]

S. Chulani, B. Boehm, and B. Steece. Bayesian analysis of empirical software engineering cost models. IEEE Transaction on Software Engineerining, 25(4), July/August 1999.

Digital Library

[7]

K. Cowig. Nasa responds to the columbia accident report: Farewell to faster - better - cheaper, September 2003. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=864,.

[8]

O. El-Rawas. Software process control without calibration. Master's thesis, 2008. Available from http://unbox.org/wisp/var/ous/thesis/thesis.pdf.

[9]

N. Fenton, M. Neil, W. Marsh, P. Hearty, L. Radlinski, and P. Krause. Project data incorporating qualitative factors for improved software defect prediction. In PROMISE'09, 2007. Available from http://promisedata.org/pdf/mpls2007FentonNeilMarshHeartyRadlinskiKrause%.pdf.

Digital Library

[10]

N. E. Fenton and S. Pfleeger. Software Metrics: A Rigorous & Practical Approach (second edition). International Thompson Press, 1995.

Digital Library

[11]

M. hardin. Mars climate orbiter nearing sept. 23 arrival, September 1999. JPL Universe, Vol. 29, No. 19.

[12]

IFPTE. IFPTE report on the effectiveness of nasa's workforce & contractor policies, March 2003. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10275.

[13]

R. Jensen. An improved macrolevel software development resource estimation model. In 5th ISPA Conference, pages 88--92, April 1983.

[14]

Y. Jiang, B. Cukic, T. Menzies, and N. Bartlow. Comparing design and code metrics for software quality prediction. In Proceedings of the PROMISE 2008 Workshop (ICSE), 2008. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/08compare.pdf.

Digital Library

[15]

S. Key. Columbia, the legacy of "better, faster, cheaper"?, July 2003. http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Columbia__The_Legacy_Of_Better_Fas%ter_Cheaper.html.

[16]

S. Kirkpatrick, C. D. Gelatt, and M. P. Vecchi. Optimization by simulated annealing. Science, Number 4598, 13 May 1983, 220, 4598:671--680, 1983.

[17]

M. Korte and D. Port. Confidence in software cost estimation results based on mmre and pred. In PROMISE '08: Proceedings of the 4th international workshop on Predictor models in software engineering, pages 63--70, 2008.

Digital Library

[18]

leonard david. nasa report: too many failures with faster, better, cheaper, march 2000. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/business/spear_report_000313.ht%ml.

[19]

T. Menies, K. Lum, and J. Hihn. The deviance problem in effort estimation. In PROMISE, 2006, 2006. Available from http://menzies.us/06deviations.pdf.

[20]

T. Menzies, Z. Chen, J. Hihn, and K. Lum. Selecting best practices for effort estimation. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, November 2006. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/06coseekmo.pdf.

Digital Library

[21]

T. Menzies, Z. Chen, D. Port, and J. Hihn. Simple software cost estimation: Safe or unsafe? In Proceedings, PROMISE workshop, ICSE 2005, 2005. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/05safewhen.pdf.

Digital Library

[22]

T. Menzies, D. Owen, and J. Richardson. The strangest thing about software. IEEE Computer, 2007. http://menzies.us/pdf/07strange.pdf.

Digital Library

[23]

T. Menzies, O. Elrawas, B. Barry, R. Madachy, J. Hihn, D. Baker, and K. Lum. Accurate estimates without calibration. In International Conference on Software Process, 2008. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/08icsp.pdf.

Digital Library

[24]

T. Menzies, O. Elrawas, J. Hihn, M. Feathear, B. Boehm, and R. Madachy. The business case for automated software engineerng. In ASE '07: Proceedings of the twenty-second IEEE/ACM international conference on Automated software engineering, pages 303--312, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/07casease-v0.pdf.

Digital Library

[25]

T. Menzies and A. Orrego. Incremental discreatization and bayes classifiers handles concept drift and scaled very well. 2005. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/05sawtooth.pdf.

[26]

T. Menzies, B. Turhan, A. Bener, G. Gay, B. Cukic, and Y. Jiang. Implications of ceiling effects in defect predictors. In Proceedings of PROMISE 2008 Workshop (ICSE), 2008. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/08ceiling.pdf.

Digital Library

[27]

T. Menzies, S. Williams, O. El-waras, B. Boehm, and J. Hihn. How to avoid drastic software process change (using stochastic statbility). In ICSE'09, 2009. Available from http://menzies.us/pdf/08drastic.pdf.

Digital Library

[28]

NASA. Beagle 2 mission profile. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm?MCode=Beagle_02.

[29]

NASA. Mars climate orbiter mishap investigation board phase i report. November 1999.

[30]

R. Park. The central equations of the price software cost model. In 4th COCOMO UsersÃŢ Group Meeting, November 1988.

[31]

L. Putnam and W. Myers. Measures for Excellence. Yourdon Press Computing Series, 1992.

[32]

T. Spear. Nasa fbc task final report, March 2000. mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/misc/fbctask.pdf.

[33]

T. Spear. Testimony on nasa fbc task before the subcommittee on science, technology, and space, March 2000. www.nasawatch.com/congress/2000/03. 22.00.spear.pdf.

[34]

D. Tuite. Better, faster, cheaper-pick any two: That old mantra used to be a touchstone for development. but does it still ring true?, March 2007. ttp://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=14997.

[35]

M. Turner. Faster, cheaper, and more .. metric?, August 2003. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zz.html.

[36]

N. watch. Faster - better - cheaper under fire, 2003.

[37]

I. H. Witten and E. Frank. Data mining. 2nd edition. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, US, 2005.

Digital Library

[38]

T. Young, J. Arnold, T. Brackey, M. Carr, D. Dwoyer, R. Fogleman, R. Jacobson, H. Kottler, P. Lyman, and J. Maguire. Mars program independent assessment team report. NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N, pages 32462--+, Mar. 2000.

Cited By

Nair VAgrawal AChen JFu WMathew GMenzies TMinku LWagner MYu ZZaidman AKamei YHill E(2018)Data-driven search-based software engineeringProceedings of the 15th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3196398.3196442(341-352)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196398.3196442
Saif AAbbas SFayed Z(2016)Finding The Best Software Project Options by PDBO Algorithm for Improving Software Development Effort, Time and QualityProceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics and Systems10.1145/2908446.2908448(304-311)Online publication date: 9-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2908446.2908448
(2015)BibliographySharing Data and Models in Software Engineering10.1016/B978-0-12-417295-1.09988-4(357-378)Online publication date: 2015
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-417295-1.09988-4
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Can we build software faster and better and cheaper?
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Modeling and simulation
    1. Model development and analysis
      1. Model verification and validation
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
      1. Software development methods

Recommendations

A second look at Faster, Better, Cheaper

"Faster, Better, Cheaper" (FBC) was a systems development methodology used by NASA in the 1990s. While usually a deprecated practice, we find that, with certain caveats, it is a viable approach. To determine this we utilized a ...
Faster, Better, and Cheaper

The phrase: “faster, better, and cheaper” is quickly creeping into the vocabulary of software engineers, software publishers, and (as a result of the recent e-business craze) all of the IT industry. After all, if you wanted to be the first ...
Faster, Better, Cheaper-NASA Visualizes the Solar System

Pathfinder is the first of many planned “Discovery Program” missions by NASA. The Discovery program is based on the concept of using “industry spacecraft” comprised of near commodity components built from generic parts that cost ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

PROMISE '09: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Predictor Models in Software Engineering

May 2009

268 pages

ISBN:9781605586342

DOI:10.1145/1540438

Conference Chair:
Tom Ostrand
AT&T USA

Copyright © 2009 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 May 2009

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

Promise '09

Promise '09: 5th International Workshop on Predictor Models in SE

May 18 - 19, 2009

British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 98 of 213 submissions, 46%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

10
Total Citations
View Citations
582
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)9
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3

Reflects downloads up to 16 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Nair VAgrawal AChen JFu WMathew GMenzies TMinku LWagner MYu ZZaidman AKamei YHill E(2018)Data-driven search-based software engineeringProceedings of the 15th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3196398.3196442(341-352)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
Saif AAbbas SFayed Z(2016)Finding The Best Software Project Options by PDBO Algorithm for Improving Software Development Effort, Time and QualityProceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics and Systems10.1145/2908446.2908448(304-311)Online publication date: 9-May-2016
(2015)BibliographySharing Data and Models in Software Engineering10.1016/B978-0-12-417295-1.09988-4(357-378)Online publication date: 2015
Menzies TKocagüneli EMinku LPeters FTurhan B(2015)The Importance of Goals in Model-Based ReasoningSharing Data and Models in Software Engineering10.1016/B978-0-12-417295-1.00023-0(305-320)Online publication date: 2015
Menzies TKocaguneli ETurhan BMinku LPeters F(2014)Sharing Data and Models in Software EngineeringundefinedOnline publication date: 22-Dec-2014
Menzies TBrady AKeung JHihn JWilliams SEl-Rawas OGreen PBoehm B(2013)Learning Project Management DecisionsIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2013.4339:12(1698-1713)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
Brady AMenzies TEl-Rawas OKocaguneli EKeung J(2010)Case-Based Reasoning for Reducing Software Development EffortJournal of Software Engineering and Applications10.4236/jsea.2010.31111803:11(1005-1014)Online publication date: 2010
Brady AMenzies TMenzies TKoru G(2010)Case-based reasoning vs parametric models for software quality optimizationProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Predictive Models in Software Engineering10.1145/1868328.1868333(1-10)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2010
El-Rawas OMenzies T(2010)A second look at Faster, Better, CheaperInnovations in Systems and Software Engineering10.1007/s11334-010-0137-96:4(319-335)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2010
II PMenzies TWilliams SEl-Rawas O(2009)Understanding the Value of Software Engineering TechnologiesProceedings of the 24th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1109/ASE.2009.93(52-61)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2009

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents