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Lower Bound, Software Development, Effort

This paper depicts a study on the lower bound of software development effort. The work begins with the transformation model which is with the popular software development lifecycle. In general, properly handled transformations can ultimately produce the software, and the processes form the path of software development. Each transformation is associated with an effort, or the weight of an element in a path. There can be a number of these paths since many different methods and tools can be used or reused for a single transformation. Then, the Shortest Path algorithm is applied to find a shortest path which is with a minimal total effort among all the paths. However, from time to time, when advanced methods and tools are introduced, the new paths and efforts will change the previously identified shortest path. Hence, the continued work is to discuss the minimal total effort of a potential shortest path, although it may be currently unavailable. Convergence analysis is firstly provided for the discussion of whether this shortest path exists, and lower bound analysis is then provided for the discussion of the completeness and soundness. This lower bound study is significant, since an optimal software development effort is determinable.