The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is an estimating approach based on splitting up the activities into partial activities up to a level of detail at which the required time per activity can be estimated. By adding the time required for the partial activities, the total required time is calculated.
The table below shows the number of hours per quality characteristic. For quality characteristics where the strategy matters, this is shown. The hours are derived from actual practice. Please note that the experience base and therefore the how hard the figures are differs. Levels of hardness are:
- Hard: experience from multiple projects, confirmed on the basis of multiple sources
- Experience: based on a few sources
- Soft: an estimate by experienced test consultants.
Practice demonstrates which factors have the greatest impact on the definitive number of hours. These factors are shown.
Strategy = ∨, ∨∨ or ∨∨∨ (low, medium, high risk/importance)
| Quality Characteristic | Strategy | Hardness estimation | Hours | Important factors for variation in size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manageability Installability | soft | 24 | ||
| Security | ∨∨∨ | experience | 80 | Minimal, hour box |
| Effectivity | ∨∨∨ | soft | 350 | Incl. hours of users |
| Continuity | ∨∨∨ | N/A | - | Depends on the duration of shadow production |
| User-friendliness | ∨ | hard | 70 | Size of application (limit 15/100 screens) Scope of research question (limit: several subjects) |
| User-friendliness | ∨∨ | hard | 80 | |
| User-friendliness | ∨∨∨ | hard | 130 | |
| Performance, online | ∨∨ | hard | 192 - 224 | Low: 15 user tasks High: 40 user tasks Complex database |
| Portability | ∨ | soft | 28 | |
| Economy | ∨ | soft | 28 |
Please note: The table above does not include hours for e.g. setting up a usability lab or selecting test-support packages. The starting point is that the required facilities must be available.