Software cost estimation based on use case points for global software development

This paper investigates the applicability of Use Case Point estimation model to global software project development. Nowadays, there is growing trend among leading software companies to outsource their project geographically, in countries with lower labor rate. This new trend increases competitiveness in the software market, which in turn shortens the development lifecycle time. This leads to several challenges in project management, especially global project management. Effort and cost estimation are two of these significant challenges. The present paper analyzes the potential of Use Case Point estimation model for global projects and uses this as a basis to discuss three proposed factors (Global team trust, Global team composition and Culture value) that will help in managing the global software project development.