IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.19 No.

12, December 2019 13

User Story Characteristics Affecting Software Cost in Agile

Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review
Muhammad Ijaz Khan, Zia Ud Din, Muhammad Ali Abid, Tariq Naeem
Institute of Computing and Information Technology, Gomal University. Pakistan.

Abstract
Agile methodology was started in 2001 and since then, lot of
companies have shifted towards Agile Software Development 2. Literature Review
(ASD). Many researchers did a lot of work on Software Project
Estimation in ASD. Many estimation techniques have been Sungjoo Kang et al. [6] made an estimation model for agile
introduced to estimate Software cost. But no could introduce a projects. It is based on function points (FP). FP are
mechanism that could be called conclusive. The recent CHAOS generally utilized to estimate the expense and exertion that
summary reports show 75% software projects still failed due to
inaccurate estimation. In ASD requirements are collected in the
are required to build up a product. This methodology is
form of user stories. Effort estimation techniques are mainly based generally utilized in conventional methodology. In Agile
on user stories and most of these techniques ignore user story process, most broadly acknowledged estimation strategy
characteristics. The current study aims to explore the depends on story points. They have fused the FP approach
characteristics of user stories that can affect effort estimation in what's more toward story Point to accomplish the most
ASD which is helpful to improve the efficiency of current abnormal amount of precision. The project position is
estimation techniques. progressively followed with the assistance of Kalman filter
algorithm. The validation is achieved with the assistance of
contextual investigation by contrasting the outcomes and
1. Introduction the conventional methodology.
I. Hussain et al. [5] built up a strategy to evaluate the
The software estimation is the process of forecasting the functional size of COSMIC standard. Where COSMIC is
size of the software product, required development efforts, an ISO standard used to calculate the software functional
project schedules, and approximating overall cost of the size dependent on client needs. Be that as it may, this
project. It is the most critical and challenging task to methodology isn't reasonable for agile process because it
accurately estimate the cost in the project management. For requires the client necessities to be formalized and
successful software development the required resources deteriorated. This research addresses the issues by
and schedules are needed to be accurately estimated [1][2]. estimating the COSMIC functional size from in-formal
It is an admitted fact that nearly 3 out of 4 projects overrun literary necessities that outfits with the agile procedure.
their budget or time or both as CHAOS summary reports The most effective assessment technique for ASD is Use
continuously described decrease in success rate of projects case estimation (UCP). Parvez [7] built up another layer in
since 2015 [3]. It is the most critical and complex issue in the current UCP assessment technique. In this technique
software development to predict the development cost, time they have presented two contributing elements specifically:
and efforts accurately to make good management decisions productivity and hazard for assessing the exertion required
required for both project managers, system analyst and for testing. The current UCP strategy considers just the
developers otherwise it will lead to complete fiasco. It is properties of the project yet this research centers around the
believed that huge overrun occurs only due to inaccurate team properties aside the project. The imperative factors to
estimation. be focused in the new layer are resources of test team, span,
The overall cost estimation process of software project testing weightage, Proficiency factor and hazard factors.
management is not different from estimating the cost of any The presentation of new layer in the current UCP enhances
other engineering discipline but there are some aspects that the adequacy and performance of the assessment.
are peculiar to software estimation due to the nature of T. Salinas et al [ 4] proposed a system for assessment and
software and software estimating methodologies. Every planning of online activities reasonable for Scrum based
estimation method has different parameters for predicting projects. This methodology depends on value-based point
the cost of software because the software is invisible, of view by consolidating various existing agile strategies.
intangible and intractable which makes it more difficult to The proposed system is approved by real-life contextual
understand and forecast the cost of software. Furthermore, analyses with the end goal to acquire the precise conclusion.
every software is somewhat different than any other This methodology is exceedingly appropriate for planning,
software which leads to a different characteristic set. managing, and evaluating web based agile projects.

Manuscript received December 5, 2019

Manuscript revised December 20, 2019
14 IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.19 No.12, December 2019

S. Garg et al. [8] developed estimation model for ASD. S. 3.3. Query String
Garg recognized highly corelated attributes. He presented
Principle Component Analysis (PCA) for lessening the It is iterative process to form a string for searching. At first,
quantity of extensive attributes. This methodology is I pursued the SLR rules [16] to make a basic string utilizing
appropriate even without statistical information and expert Boolean OR/AND. All synonyms of the terms and their
opinion. The outcome from this methodology demonstrates alternatives are used with “OR” and then ANDed to create
to have a superior exactness and precision of cost searching string. I applied the basic query string on search
assessment in ASD projects. engine to get the pertinent studies. The basic search query
Story Point Approach (SPA) is the most generally utilized was applied to well known search engines like IEEE
methodology in ASD assessment. A. Panda et al. [9] explore, Scopus, Science Direct and google scholar.
enhances the estimation exactness in Agile dependent on Catchphrases from known essential examinations and
neural networks. This methodology considers distinctive recently gotten ones were included in the string. Here,
sorts of neural systems like General Regression neural additionally examined the titles, summaries and author
systems (GRNN), polynomial and probabilistic neural catchphrases from some known basic studies to distinguish
networks to enhance the exactness of the effort estimation. seek terms.
This strategy is good for effort assessment, anyway it
ignores cost, schedule and risk. 3.4. Search terms:
K. Moharreri et al. [10] gave the idea of automatic
assessment technique called "Auto Estimate" for evaluating The keywords used for search query are listed in Table 1.
exertion for ASD. This methodology is supplementing to
broadly utilized manual planning poker procedure. The best Table 1: Keywords Extracted from Literature
SNo. Keywords References
learning strategy is chosen automatically by carrying 1) 1 Agile cost [20,22,23-30,33,38]
Data accumulation by utilizing story cards, textual 2 Agile effort [20,22,23-
investigation, building the model with extracted features 30,33,38,41]
3 Agile estimation, Agile [20,27,29,30,33,41]
and performs analysis by estimating the performance. This estimating
model likewise furnishes promising outcomes regarding 4 Agile software development [21,24,27,37,40,43]
5 User story size/sizing [20-27,29,31,34,40-
exactness. 43]
6 User story metrics [29,32,36]
7 User story complexity [41,43]
8 User story characteristics [22,26,35,39]
3. Systematic Literature Review 9 Good story quality [21, 35, 39,]
10 Agile requirements [23,29, 39, 40,43]
A systematic literature review is conducted methodically
by following a set of guidelines to collect and analyze all The expression "agile software development (ASD)" has a
available evidence about a specific question in an unbiased substantial number of equivalent words and exchange terms
and repeatable manner [16]. Following steps will be that are utilized in literature; few of them are listed in table
performed during this SLR. 1. Given that as I studied more and more literature and
included to my set of known studies more alternative terms
3.1. Research Question: for ASD were discovered. Single word (i.e. "Agile") has
been selected to get majority of its conceivable interchange
What are the basic characteristics of user story that terms, then ANDed it with "Software" to sift through
totally unessential investigations from different areas. The
can affect effort estimation in agile software
study is further filtered by ANDing the terms “User Story”,
development? “Story Size”, “Story Characteristics”. M. Usman, Dybå and
Dingsoyr in their SLR [19] [13] on ASD have also utilized
a comparable methodology for the Term "Agile". Another
3.2. Search Strategy: SLR on usability in ASD by Silva et.al [15] likewise utilizes
the expression "Agile" in the pursuit string as opposed to
In search strategy the electronic databases and manual
endeavoring to include the majority of its alternative.
conferences proceedings are searched. A search strategy
Moreover, the set of known basic studies was likewise
starts with the identification of major key terms from
utilized as a quasi-gold standard as proposed in [17] to
PICOC and their alternatives and synonyms. These terms
evaluate the exactness of the inquiry string. The final search
are used to form a query string that is used to derive the rest
string is displayed underneath. Note that this string must be
of the search process.
altered in like manner for every one of the databases.
IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.19 No.12, December 2019 15

3.5. Primary and Secondary Search Strategies: 5. Studies related to user story quality
6. Studies describe in English
In primary search strategy I utilized the search string on 7. Studies reported in any
well-known databases. The date filter was applied to get workshop/conference/journal.
literature since 2001. I picked 2001 as the beginning date
3.6.2. Exclusion Criteria
since this was the point at which the Agile Manifesto was
published. The search result from each source was kept and 1. Studies not based on Agile Software Development
managed in separate Excel sheets. At the end results from
2. Studies not related to agile cost/effort/size
all databases were combined and duplicates were removed. estimation
After removing duplicated I ended up with 273 primary 3. Studies not related to agile requirements
studies. Databases and the search result (before & after 4. Studies not related to user story characteristics
duplicates) are listed in Table 2. 5. Studies not relate d to user story quality
6. Studies not describe in English
Table 2: Search Results
Before Removal of After Removal of 7. Studies not reported in any
Database Duplication Duplication workshop/conference/journal.
Scopus 20 5
IEEE 199 110 3.7. Study Selection Process
Explore
EI 3 3
Compendex The study selection process was performed in two stages,
Web of
Science 15 7 as follows:
INSPEC 16 4
Science 15 11 3.7.1. Title and Abstract level screening:
Direct
ACM DL 278 124
Springer In this phase the titles and abstracts of all 273 papers were
Link 10 9
studied. Inclusion/exclusion criteria was applied to titles
Total 556 273 and abstracts to decide their significance to the current
review. At that point those studies were excluded which
Selected databases cover all significant areas of Software are clearly not relevant to ASD. For example, as the term
Engineering, giving thorough inclusion of current SLR's “Agile” was used in search string so I got some hits on the
topic. Different SLRs, for example, [19, 11, 14, 18], also publications about “Agile Manufacturing”. Thus, all those
utilized these databases for seeking pertinent primary articles were excluded whose titles clearly indicated that the
studies. articles were outside the scope of this systematic review.
In the next search stage all the basic studies regained in the Sometimes the author used such witty title that make it very
first phase, was examined. difficult to guess about the actual contents of an article. In
such cases, the abstract of article was reviewed to make it
3.6. Study Selection Criteria clear whether the article was out of scope or not. All those
I demarcated Inclusion and exclusion criteria according to studies were excluded whose main focus were not ASD or
they did not include empirical data.
research question and goals of SLR.
In such cases, the articles were incorporated for audit and
3.6.1. Inclusion Criteria the abstract was studied to make it clear whether the article
was out of scope or not. Studies were barred if their center,
1. Studies based on Agile Software Development or fundamental center, was not ASD or on the off chance
2. Studies related to agile cost/effort/size estimation that they didn't present observational information. After
3. Studies related to agile requirements titles and abstracts screening, I ended up with 37 papers. It
4. Studies related to user story characteristics was noted that abstracts were of variable quality. As few
16 IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.19 No.12, December 2019

abstracts were missing or misleading. similarly, few 3.8. Quality Assessment (QA)
abstracts gave little sign of what was in the full article.
Therefore, at this stage, all those studies were included that All 37 papers were evaluated independently according to
showed some type of involvement with ASD. 13 criteria given in [16] as shown in Table 3. Other
researcher [19,11,12] also followed these guidelines given
3.7.2. Full text level screening: by [16] to customize their work. Using 3-points scale, each
question was answered by Yes (Y=1), No (N=0), Average
In this stage all 37 papers were studied in detail. (A=0.5). Each study could get 0-13 points.
Inclusion/exclusion criteria was applied to the contents of Using the first quartile (13/4= 3.25) as the end point for
all 37 papers. Ten papers were excluded in this stage. In including a study. If a study got equal or more than 3.25 it
case I did not have access to the paper, I emailed the author, would be selected otherwise removed.
however 1 paper could not be accessed by all means.

Table 3: Quality Assessment Checklist adopted by [19,12, 16]

ten papers were excluded because of not passing the

4. Results: inclusion criteria, one because of a low-quality score and
one paper was rejected because the study was already
This section describes the outcomes for the overall SLR included in another paper. Separation of the ten papers;
process and for research question also. Table 4 shows the excluded on inclusive/exclusive criteria is as bellow.
numbers of studies going through various phases of the o 7 papers were not conducted in ASD (exclusion
SLR. Details of the rejected papers in various phases are: criteria 1)
IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.19 No.12, December 2019 17

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