What Are the Significant Cost Drivers for COSMIC Functional Size Based Effort Estimation?
Pages 62 - 75
Abstract
This paper investigates the nature of the relationship between software product size measured by Common Software Measurement International Consortium (COSMIC) Function Points and the development effort. We investigated which of the numerical and categorical cost drivers explain the variation in the development effort by performing step wise Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA) and Linear Regression Analysis. For the statistical analyses, we utilized the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) Dataset Release 10. In this paper, we discuss the results we obtained and the significance of the results for the software organizations who would like to improve their effort estimation processes.
References
[1]
Standish Group, The Standish Group CHAOS Report (2009).
[2]
ISBSG, Software Project Estimates - How accurate are they? The International Software Benchmarking Standards Group Subscriber. Newsletter 4(1) (2005).
[3]
Albrecht, A.J.: Measuring application development productivity. In: Proceedings of the IBM Applications Development Symposium, Monterey, California, pp. 83-92 (1979).
[4]
Gencel, C., Demirors, O.: Functional Size Measurement Revisited. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 17(3), 71-106 (2008).
[5]
ISO/IEC 14143-1: Information Technology - Software Measurement - Functional Size Measurement - Part 1: Definition of Concepts (1998) (updated 2007).
[6]
ISO/IEC 19761:2003, Software Engineering - COSMIC-FFP: A Functional Size Measurement Method, International Organization for Standardization (2003).
[7]
ISO/IEC 20926:2003, Software Engineering-IFPUG 4.1 Unadjusted Functional Size Measurement Method - Counting Practices Manual, International Organization for Standardization (2003).
[8]
ISO/IEC 20968:2002, Software Engineering - MK II Function Point Analysis - Counting Practices Manual, International Organization for Standardization (2002).
[9]
ISO/IEC 24570:2005, Software Engineering - NESMA functional size measurement method version 2.1 - Definitions and counting guidelines for the application of Function Point Analysis, International Organization for Standardization (2005).
[10]
ISO/IEC 29881:2008, Software Engineering - FiSMA functional size measurement method version 1.1, International Organization for Standardization (2008).
[11]
International Software Benchmarking Standards Group Dataset 10 (2007), http://www.isbsg.org/
[12]
Jørgensen, M., Shepperd, M.: A Systematic Review of Software Development Cost Estimation Studies. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 33(1), 33-53 (2007).
[13]
Leung, H., Fan, Z.: Software Cost Estimation, Handbook of Software Engineering. Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2002).
[14]
Boehm, B.W., Horowitz, E., Madachy, R., Reifer, D., Bradford, K.C., Steece, B., Brown, A.W., Chulani, S., Abts, C.: Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II. Prentice Hall, New Jersey (2000).
[15]
Putnam, L.H.: A general empirical solution to the macro software sizing and estimating problem. IEEE Trans. Soft. Eng., 345-361 (July 1978).
[16]
Tausworthe, R.: Deep Space Network Software Cost Estimation Model, pp. 39-57. Jet Propulsion Laboratory Publication (1981).
[17]
Park, R.E.: PRICE S: The calculation within and why. In: Proceedings of ISPA Tenth Annual Conference, Brighton, England (July 1988).
[18]
Abran, A., Ndiaye, I., Bourque, P.: Contribution of Software Size in Effort Estimation. Research Lab. In: Software Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure, Canada (2003).
[19]
Briand, L.C., El Emam, K., Maxwell, K., Surmann, D., Wieczorek, I.: An Assessment and Comparison of Common Software Cost Estimation Models. In: Proc. of the 21st Intern. Conference on Software Eng., ICSE 1999, Los Angeles, CA, USA, pp. 313-322 (1999).
[20]
Briand, L.C., Langley, T., Wieczorek, I.: A Replicated Assessment and Comparison of Software Cost Modeling Techniques. In: Proceedings of the 22nd Intern. Conf. on Software engineering, ICSE 2000, Limerick, Ireland, pp. 377-386 (2000).
[21]
Jeffery, R., Ruhe, M., Wieczorek, I.: A Comparative Study of Two Software Development Cost Modeling Techniques using Multi-organizational and Company-specific Data. Information and Software Technology 42, 1009-1016 (2000).
[22]
Chen, Z., Menzies, T., Port, D., Boehm, B.: Finding the Right Data for Software Cost Modeling. IEEE Software 22(6), 38-46 (2005).
[23]
Premraj, R., Shepperd, M., Kitchenham, B., Forselius, P.: An Empirical Analysis of Software Productivity over Time. In: Proceedings of the 11th IEEE international Software Metrics Symposium, METRICS, p. 37. IEEE Computer Society, Washington (2005).
[24]
Angelis, L., Stamelos, I., Morisio, M.: Building A Software Cost Estimation Model Based On Categorical Data. In: Proceedings of the 7th international Symposium on Software Metrics, METRICS, p. 4. IEEE Computer Society, Washington (2001).
[25]
Lokan, C., Wright, T., Hill, P.R., Stringer, M.: Organizational Benchmarking Using the ISBSG Data Repository. IEEE Software 18(5), 26-32 (2001).
[26]
Maxwell, K.D., Forselius, P.: Benchmarking Software-Development Productivity. IEEE Software 17(1), 80-88 (2000).
[27]
Gencel, C., Buglione, L.: Do Different Functionality Types Affect the Relationship between Software Functional Size and Effort? In: Cuadrado-Gallego, J.J., et al. (eds.) MENSURA 2007. LNCS, vol. 4895, pp. 72-85. Springer, Heidelberg (2008).
[28]
Buglione, L., Gencel, C.: Impact of Base Functional Component Types on Software Functional Size Based Effort Estimation. In: Jedlitschka, A., Salo, O. (eds.) PROFES 2008. LNCS, vol. 5089, pp. 75-89. Springer, Heidelberg (2008).
[29]
Bajwa, S.S.: Investigating the Nature of Relationship between Software Size and Development Effort. MCS-2008-45, School of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden (2009).
[30]
Fenton, N.E., Pfleeger, S.L.: Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach, 2nd Revised edn. PWS Publishing, Boston (1997).
[31]
Pedhazur, E.J.: Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research: Explanation and Prediction, 3rd edn. Harcourt Brace College Publishers (1997).
[32]
Kachigan, S.K.: Statistical Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Univariate and Multivariate Methods. Radius Press (1986).
[33]
Maxwell, K.D.: Applied Statistics for Software Managers. Prentice Hall PTR, Englewood Cliffs (2002).
[34]
Statistical Packages for Social Sciences 17.0, http://www.spss.com
Recommendations
Model-based early and rapid estimation of COSMIC functional size - An experimental evaluation
Context: Functional size measurement methods are widely used but have two major shortcomings: they require a complete and detailed knowledge of user requirements, and they involve relatively expensive and lengthy processes. Objective: UML is routinely ...
How to Use COSMIC Functional Size in Effort Estimation Models?
IWSM/Metrikon/Mensura '08: Proceedings of the International Conferences on Software Process and Product MeasurementAlthough Functional Size Measurement (FSM) methods have become widely used by the software organizations, the functional size based effort estimation still needs further investigation. Most of the studies on effort estimation consider total functional ...
The role of the measure of functional complexity in effort estimation
PROMISE '10: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Predictive Models in Software EngineeringBackground. Currently there are several definitions of measures that should represent the size of software functional requirements. These measures have gained a quite relevant role, since they are one of the few basis upon which effort estimation can be ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
November 2009
346 pages
ISBN:9783642054143
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Berlin, Heidelberg
Publication History
Published: 09 November 2009
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 09 Feb 2025