Demonstration - Results Help Text

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The top of this panel gives the estimated effort for the task together with a 15% variance either way to suggest an acceptable tolerance. Industry figures indicate that there are 130 working hours in a month in real terms and the value displayed by SPECTRE will have been adjusted accordingly.

If the estimate is one that has been retrieved from the database, you can use the Previous Estimate button to view the database version so that any differences can be noted. This facility is provided:

when the save icon is pressed and the database version has not been updated before, or
immediately, if the database version has been previously updated

Other Information

This information, taken in conjunction with SPECTRE’s comments, is designed to characterise the task. It should be possible to identify any features that merit further attention but were not readily apparent from the task specification itself.

In practice the following notes are displayed in response to pressing the Explain Results button.

Time Saving Through Code/Design Adaptation
This is the combined time-saving percentage that corresponds to the values supplied via the General Details tab. It includes an allowance for adaptation effort. For a fairly standard task, a saving of between 20 and 40 percent might be reasonably expected.

Complexity
Complexity reflects the values entered via the Data Manipulation, Program Logic and Other Factors tabs. SPECTRE uses a scale in the range 1 to 81. The majority of cases would be in the 30 - 40 range.

Knowledge
SPECTRE summarises the various levels of Knowledge Available and Knowledge Required entered via the Developer tab. A four-character string shows those areas in which Knowledge Available is either adequate (Y) or inadequate (N). The characters in the string correspond left to right with Current Task Knowledge, Installation Standards Knowledge, Operating System Knowledge and Installation Hardware Knowledge respectively.

Experience
This value reflects the ratings entered for Grade and Experience via the Developer tab and are represented on a scale of 1 to 12. A value of around 8 would be typical.

Construction Point Score
This is an internal metric reflecting the task's functional content. Although its potential range is from 0 to over 4000, most tasks are likely to score somewhere between 40 and 60.