The Math FAQ The Numbers The Sources

Results of Research from All Sources

Research Variable Reference Industry Values
Average percentage of IT budgets spent on maintenance projects 3, 4 50% 75%
Percentage of maintenance caused by poor requirements 2, 3, 5, 6, 11   50% 70%
Cost to find and fix a requirements defect by phase 2
Phase Average Cost to Repair Defect  Normalized values
Requirements $139 1
Design $455 3
Coding $1,000 7
System Testing $7,000 50
Production $14,000 101
Increase in cost to find and fix a defect in final testing or operation rather than during analysis 2
Phase Cost Multipliers  
System Testing 50 times
Production 100 times
Percentage of your maintenance budget spent on repairing some kind of requirements defects 5, 6 50% 70%
Percentage of requirement errors caused by ineffective analysis 5, 6, 11 30% 50%
Impact of improving analysts capability by 1 or 2 levels (30%) 3, 10 15% 34%
Analyst Capability Cost Multipliers
Very low 1.42
Low 1.19
Nominal 1
High 0.85
Very High 0.71