A Fuzzy-ECM Approach to Estimate Software Project Schedule under Uncertainties

Software development always faces unexpected events like changes in technology, platform, environment and market needs. Hence, uncertainty is a challenge to estimate project cost and schedule. To address the challenge, Event Chain Methodology (ECM) is a proposed approach in recent years to model risk events separately from activities. It reveals how events interact with each other and affect activities in project. This paper analyzes the ambiguity nature of events and activities in ECM and introduces fuzzy set theory to extend ECM modeling capability. The Fuzzy-ECM (FECM) model is then used for estimating project schedules by simulation, sampling, and interpolation. Case studies are excised to illustrate the proposed approach.