This free online course on Project Planning and Estimation Techniques will begin by introducing you to project planning along with various activities carried out during project planning such as estimation, project scheduling and staff organisation. You will learn about the basic concepts of project estimation which include the size of the project, the effort needed, duration and cost. You will also learn about the different types of estimation techniques such as top-down and bottom-up as well as parametric models for project estimation.

This course will then introduce you to Albrecht/IFPUG function point analysis. You will learn about Symons/Mark II function points and COSMIC function points. You will then be introduced to constructive cost models (COCOMO) as well as the types of modes and models used which allows organisations to benchmark their software development productivity. You will learn about the fundamentals of intermediate COCOMO Model, how it gives accurate estimation and refines the initial estimate obtained by the basic COCOMO.

Lastly, this course will discuss the variations of the COCOMO models. You will learn about the main objectives of COCOMO II which are to develop a software cost, schedule estimation model and software cost database. You will be introduced to Halstead's Software Science, which is an analytical estimation technique. You will also learn about Halstead's theory, the three categories of testing estimation techniques, as well as staffing level estimation. Start this course today and improve your knowledge of project planning and estimation techniques.