Abstract
This paper presents a verification protocol for analyzing the source of inaccuracy in measurement activities of Function Points Analysis (FPA) and Automated Function Point (AFP). An empirical study was conducted with the protocol to determine the accuracy of FPA and AFP, and common differences during their application. The empirical study was conducted and differences between the measurement process regarding accuracy, reproducibility, and protocol adoption properties were reported. Effectiveness of the verification protocol to evaluate functional size measurement procedures was provided. The application of the protocol enabled participants to identify differences and their causes between counting results in a systematic way. Many participants had a favorable opinion regarding the usefulness of the protocol, and most of them agreed that the application of this protocol improved their understanding of measurement methods.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Albrecht, A.J.: Measuring application development productivity. In: Proceedings of the Joint SHARE/GUIDE/IBM Application Development Symposium, vol. 10, pp. 83–92, October 1979
ISO: ISO/IEC 20926, Software and systems engineering - Software measurement – IFPUG functional size measurement method (2009)
Garmus, D., Herron, D.: Function Point Analysis: Measurement Practices for Successful Software Projects. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston (2001)
Object Management Group, Automated Function Points (AFP) Version 1.0, January 2014, OMG Document Number: formal/2014-01-03, http://www.omg.org/spec/AFP
Ellafi, R., Meli, R.: A source code analysis-based function point estimation method integrated with a logic driven estimation method. In: SMEF 2006, Roma, Italy (May 2006)
Sag, M.A., Tarhan, A.: Measuring COSMIC software size from functional execution traces of Java business applications. In: 2014 Joint Conference of the International Workshop on Software Measurement and the International Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement (IWSM-MENSURA), pp. 272–281. IEEE, October 2014
ISO: ISO/IEC 14143-1- Information Technology - Software measurement - Functional Size Measurement. Part 1: Definition of Concepts (2007)
Soubra, H., Abran, A., Ramdane-Cherif, A.: Verifying the accuracy of automation tools for the measurement of software with COSMIC–ISO 19761 including an AUTOSAR-based example and a case study. In: 2014 Joint Conference of the International Workshop on Software Measurement and the International Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement (IWSM-MENSURA), pp. 23–31. IEEE, October 2014
Özkan, B., Demirörs, O.: Formalization studies in functional size measurement. In: Modern Software Engineering Concepts and Practices: Advanced Approaches: Advanced Approaches, vol. 242 (2010)
Abrahao, S., Poels, G., Pastor, O.: Assessing the reproducibility and accuracy of functional size measurement methods through experimentation. In: Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, ISESE 2004, pp. 189–198. IEEE, August 2004
Lavazza, L.: Automated function points: critical evaluation and discussion. In: 2015 IEEE/ACM 6th International on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics (WETSoM), pp. 35–43. IEEE, May 2015
Heller, R.: Automated function point counting–a fact based analysis. Q/P Management Group, Inc. www.qpmg.com/Library/confirm_download.php?id=49&pid=1
Jacquet, J.P., Abran, A.: From software metrics to software measurement methods: a process model. In: The Third IEEE International Software Engineering Standards Symposium and Forum, ISESS 1997, Emerging International Standards, pp. 128–135. IEEE, June 1997
Total Metrics: Total metrics-levels of counting. Version 1.3, January 2004. http://www.totalmetrics.com/function-point-resources/downloads/Levels-of-Function-Point-Counting.pdf (2001)
Desharnais, J.M., Morris, P.: Post measurement validation procedure for function point counts. In: Position Paper Forum on Software Engineering Standards Issues, October 1996
Quesada-López, C., Jenkins, M.: An evaluation of functional size measurement methods. In: Paper Presented at the CIBSE 2015 - XVIII Ibero-American Conference on SE, pp. 151–165 (2015)
Abrahao, S.M., Director-Lopez, O.P.: On the functional size measurement of object-oriented conceptual schemas: design and evaluation Issues, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) (2004)
Basili, V.R., Rombach, H.D.: The TAME project: Towards improvement-oriented software environments. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 14(6), 758–773 (1988)
Runeson, P., Höst, M.: Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empirical Softw. Eng. 14(2), 131–164 (2009)
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by VI at University of Costa Rica No. 834-B5-A18, and Ministry of Science, Technology & Telecommunications (MICITT).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Quesada-López, C., Jenkins, M. (2015). Applying a Verification Protocol to Evaluate the Accuracy of Functional Size Measurement Procedures: An Empirical Approach. In: Abrahamsson, P., Corral, L., Oivo, M., Russo, B. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9459. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26844-6_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26844-6_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26843-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26844-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)