Authors:
Marcos De Freitas Jr.
1
;
Marcelo Fantinato
1
;
Violeta Sun
1
;
Lucinéia H. Thom
2
and
Vanja Garaj
3
Affiliations:
1
School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, São Paulo – SP and Brazil
;
2
Institute of Informatics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre – RS and Brazil
;
3
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Brunel University London and U.K.
Keyword(s):
Function Point Analysis, Function Points, Business Processes, Functional Size, Functional Size Measurement.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Operational Research
;
Project Management
;
Requirements Analysis And Management
;
Software Engineering
;
Software Metrics and Measurement
;
Tools, Techniques and Methodologies for System Development
Abstract:
Existing proposals to improve the measurement reproducibility of Function Point Analysis (FPA) oversimplify its standard rules, threatening its measurement accuracy. We introduce a new artifact called Function Point Tree (FPT), which allows for full data collection required to count function points, reducing the experts’ personal interpretation and thus the size variation. The new measurement method, called FPT-based FPA (FPT-FPA), enlarges FPA standardization and systematization. Using this method allows to improve measurement reproducibility whilst maintaining its accuracy. Preliminary results of an empirical study show coefficients of variation for FTP-FPA lower than the maximum expected for both reproducibility and accuracy for some scenarios.