Optimizing Return-On-Investment (ROI) for Empirical Software Engineering Studies Working Group Results

Return-on-investment (ROI) is a concept from the financial world. In the dynamic view, ROI describes the periodically recurring profits (returns) from fixed financial capital (investment). In the static view, ROI describes the one-time income or saving (return) realized as a consequence of a one-time expenditure (investment). In this case, if the return does not occur within a short time, later parts of the return may be discounted for interest. For our purposes, we will use the static view and ignore discounting. We will call the return benefit and the investment cost.