The estimation of the software cost remains one of the most challenging problems in software engineering; as a preliminary estimate of cost includes many elements of uncertainty. Reliable and early estimates are difficult to obtain because of the lack of the detailed information about the future system at an early stage. However, the early estimates are really important when bidding for a contract or determining whether a project is feasible in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Estimators often rely on their past experiences for the prediction of effort for software projects. The fundamental factors that are contributing towards inaccuracy of the cost estimation process are imprecise and drifting requirements, information not readily available on past projects, and the methods that were developed and trained on specific data. In this thesis, we have developed a software cost estimation tool that helps commercial software-development organizations to effectively and quantitatively measure and analyze the software metrics based upon the functional requirements, operational constraints and organization’s capability to handle a project. This cost estimation tool is a fusion implementation or an essence of certain software measurement and estimation techniques that help a software organization to evaluate and analyze fundamental software metrics such as complexity, time, effort, and cost all of which are essential to improving turnaround time and attaining organizational maturity. The new cost estimation method is proposed for the iterative software development projects. The use case technique is implemented per iteration for the specification of the software requirements. COCOMO II and Function Point were used to compute the effort required for successive iterations. We also computed the magnitude of relative error for successive iterations. We tested the proposed method on student projects in order to illustrate its usefulness.

Software size estimation has been long a challenging task over a software development process. This paper presents an approach that uses the function point analysis to estimate program coding and testing effort in a MIS department, which maintains an ERP system with low employee transfer rate. The method first analyzes the historical data using regression analysis, and then builds a software estimation model with elaborated coefficients for related parameters. The estimation model is tested with the remaining set of historical data to evaluate its predict accuracy. It is shown that the size estimation model can be as accurate as about 90% correctness. Thus it is useful not only in company-wide information resource allocation, but also in performance evaluation of software engineers.

Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is the major tool used to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the operation management for the Steel Industry. Prior to implementing the MES, correctly estimating the MES Software Project Size is an important first stage and is a complex exercise. Several methods have been proposed to help in evaluating MES Software Project Size before implementation, such as function point analysis and fast function point analysis approaches. Among them, the fast function point analysis is a prominent approach. However, the detailed guideline for the use of it is lacking. Therefore, this study presents a methodology which provides these guidelines and uses it to estimate the MES Software Project Size in the Steel Industry. The research methodology is articulated using the design science research methodology. A usability evaluation is performed using three steel industry cases to demonstrate its applicability. With this enhanced approach, IT professionals or adopting organizations can more easily and systematically estimate the MES software project size.

Análise de Pontos de Função (APF) é uma das medidas usadas para obter o tamanho funcional de um software. Determinou-se, no Brasil, que toda contratação pública de desenvolvimento de software deve usar APF. Entretanto, uma das principais críticas realizadas a APF diz respeito à falta de confiabilidade entre diferentes contadores em uma mesma contagem já que, segundo alguns pesquisadores, as regras de APF são subjetivas, obrigando que cada contador faça interpretações individuais a partir delas. Existem diversas propostas para que se possa aumentar a confiabilidade dos resultados gerados com APF. Em geral, as abordagens propostas realizam mapeamentos entre componentes de artefatos desenvolvidos no ciclo de vida de software com os conceitos de APF. Porém, tais propostas simplificam em mais de 50% as regras previstas em APF comprometendo a validade dos resultados gerados pelas contagens. Como o tamanho do software é usado na derivação de outras medidas, inconsistências nos tamanhos medidos podem comprometer as medidas derivadas, o que influência negativamente nas decisões tomadas. Sem padronização dos tamanhos funcionais obtidos e consequentemente sem confiabilidade dos resultados obtidos, medidas derivadas a partir do tamanho funcional, como custo e esforço, podem estar comprometidas, fazendo com que ela não ajude a influenciar positivamente tais projetos. Diante desse contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver e avaliar experimentalmente uma abordagem para oferecer maior padronização e sistematização na aplicação de APF. Para isso, propõe-se incorporar o artefato Árvore de pontos de função ao processo de APF. Sua inclusão possibilitaria o levantamento de dados adicionais, necessários à contagem de pontos de função, reduzindo a ocorrência de interpretações pessoais do contador, e consequentemente, a variação de tamanho reportado. A abordagem foi denominada como Análise de Pontos de Função baseada em Árvore de Pontos de Função (APF-APF). Este trabalho baseia-se no método de pesquisa Design Science, cujo objetivo é estender os limites do ser humano e as capacidades organizacionais, criando novos artefatos que solucionem problemas ainda não resolvidos ou parcialmente resolvidos; que neste trabalho, trata-se da falta de confiabilidade na aplicação de APF devido à sua margem para diferentes interpretações. APF-APF foi testada com 11 Analistas de Sistemas / Requisitos que, baseados na especificação de um software de Recursos Humanos medido oficialmente pelo IFPUG com 125 pontos de função, modelaram a Árvore de pontos de função de modo manual ou automatizado via protótipo de ferramenta desenvolvido. Os resultados obtidos indicam que os tamanhos funcionais calculados com APF-APF possuem coeficiente de variação, respectivamente de 10,72% em relação a confiabilidade e 17,61% em relação a validade dos resultados de medição gerados. Considera-se que a abordagem APF-APF mostrou potencial para que melhores resultados possam ser obtidos. Verifica-se que a principal causa das variações observadas estava relacionada a ausência de informações requeridas para a Árvore de pontos de função, não tendo sido identificado nenhum problema específico em relação as regras definidas para APF-APF. Por fim, verificou-se que o uso do protótipo de ferramenta desenvolvido aumenta em até 47% a eficiência na contagem de pontos de função quando comparado com APF-APF manual / Function point analysis (FPA) is one of the measures used to achieve the functional size of software. It was determined, in Brazil, public procurement of software development should use FPA. However, one of the main criticisms made the FPA concerns the lack of reliability between different counters on the same count that, according to some researchers, the FPA rules are subjective, requiring that each counter do individual interpretations from them. There are various proposals in order to increase the reliability of the results generated with FPA. In General, the proposed approaches perform mappings between artifacts developed components in software life cycle with the concepts of FPA. However, such proposals simplify in more than 50% the rules laid down in FPA compromising the validity of the results generated by the scores. As the size of the software is used in the derivation of other measures, inconsistencies in sizes measured may compromise the measures derived, which negatively influence the decisions taken. Without standardization of functional sizes obtained and consequently without reliability of the results obtained, derived from measures of functional size, cost and effort, may be compromised, causing it to not help to positively influence these projects. In this context, the objective of this work is to develop and experimentally evaluate one approach to offer greater standardization and systematization in the implementation of FPA. For this, it is proposed to incorporate the artifact \"function point Tree\" to the FPA process. Its inclusion would allow additional data collection necessary for function point count, reducing the occurrence of personal interpretations of the counter, and consequently, the variation of size reported. The approach was called as Function Point Tree-based Function Point Analysis (FPT-FPA). This work is based on the method of Design Science research, whose goal is to extend the limits of the human and organizational capacities, creating new artifacts to troubleshoot unresolved or still partially resolved; in this work, it is the lack of reliability in application of FPA because of its scope for different interpretations. FPT-FPA were tested with 11 Systems analysts / requirements analysts, based on the specification of a human resources software measured by the IFPUG with 125 points, have modeled the function point Tree manually or via automated tool prototype developed. The results obtained indicate that the functional sizes calculated with FPT-FPA have coefficient of variation, respectively of 10.72% for reliability and 17.61% in relation to the validity of the measurement results generated. The FPA approach showed potential for better results can be obtained. It turns out that the main cause of the variations observed were related to the absence of information required for the tree of function points have not been identified any particular problem regarding the rules defined for FPT-FPA. Finally, it was found that the use of a prototype tool increases by up to 47% on efficiency function point count when compared to FPT-FPA manual

Análise de Pontos de Função (APF) é uma das medidas usadas para obter o tamanho funcional de um software. Determinou-se, no Brasil, que toda contratação pública de desenvolvimento de software deve usar APF. Entretanto, uma das principais críticas realizadas a APF diz respeito à falta de confiabilidade entre diferentes contadores em uma mesma contagem já que, segundo alguns pesquisadores, as regras de APF são subjetivas, obrigando que cada contador faça interpretações individuais a partir delas. Existem diversas propostas para que se possa aumentar a confiabilidade dos resultados gerados com APF. Em geral, as abordagens propostas realizam mapeamentos entre componentes de artefatos desenvolvidos no ciclo de vida de software com os conceitos de APF. Porém, tais propostas simplificam em mais de 50% as regras previstas em APF comprometendo a validade dos resultados gerados pelas contagens. Como o tamanho do software é usado na derivação de outras medidas, inconsistências nos tamanhos medidos podem comprometer as medidas derivadas, o que influência negativamente nas decisões tomadas. Sem padronização dos tamanhos funcionais obtidos e consequentemente sem confiabilidade dos resultados obtidos, medidas derivadas a partir do tamanho funcional, como custo e esforço, podem estar comprometidas, fazendo com que ela não ajude a influenciar positivamente tais projetos. Diante desse contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver e avaliar experimentalmente uma abordagem para oferecer maior padronização e sistematização na aplicação de APF. Para isso, propõe-se incorporar o artefato Árvore de pontos de função ao processo de APF. Sua inclusão possibilitaria o levantamento de dados adicionais, necessários à contagem de pontos de função, reduzindo a ocorrência de interpretações pessoais do contador, e consequentemente, a variação de tamanho reportado. A abordagem foi denominada como Análise de Pontos de Função baseada em Árvore de Pontos de Função (APF-APF). Este trabalho baseia-se no método de pesquisa Design Science, cujo objetivo é estender os limites do ser humano e as capacidades organizacionais, criando novos artefatos que solucionem problemas ainda não resolvidos ou parcialmente resolvidos; que neste trabalho, trata-se da falta de confiabilidade na aplicação de APF devido à sua margem para diferentes interpretações. APF-APF foi testada com 11 Analistas de Sistemas / Requisitos que, baseados na especificação de um software de Recursos Humanos medido oficialmente pelo IFPUG com 125 pontos de função, modelaram a Árvore de pontos de função de modo manual ou automatizado via protótipo de ferramenta desenvolvido. Os resultados obtidos indicam que os tamanhos funcionais calculados com APF-APF possuem coeficiente de variação, respectivamente de 10,72% em relação a confiabilidade e 17,61% em relação a validade dos resultados de medição gerados. Considera-se que a abordagem APF-APF mostrou potencial para que melhores resultados possam ser obtidos. Verifica-se que a principal causa das variações observadas estava relacionada a ausência de informações requeridas para a Árvore de pontos de função, não tendo sido identificado nenhum problema específico em relação as regras definidas para APF-APF. Por fim, verificou-se que o uso do protótipo de ferramenta desenvolvido aumenta em até 47% a eficiência na contagem de pontos de função quando comparado com APF-APF manual / Function point analysis (FPA) is one of the measures used to achieve the functional size of software. It was determined, in Brazil, public procurement of software development should use FPA. However, one of the main criticisms made the FPA concerns the lack of reliability between different counters on the same count that, according to some researchers, the FPA rules are subjective, requiring that each counter do individual interpretations from them. There are various proposals in order to increase the reliability of the results generated with FPA. In General, the proposed approaches perform mappings between artifacts developed components in software life cycle with the concepts of FPA. However, such proposals simplify in more than 50% the rules laid down in FPA compromising the validity of the results generated by the scores. As the size of the software is used in the derivation of other measures, inconsistencies in sizes measured may compromise the measures derived, which negatively influence the decisions taken. Without standardization of functional sizes obtained and consequently without reliability of the results obtained, derived from measures of functional size, cost and effort, may be compromised, causing it to not help to positively influence these projects. In this context, the objective of this work is to develop and experimentally evaluate one approach to offer greater standardization and systematization in the implementation of FPA. For this, it is proposed to incorporate the artifact \"function point Tree\" to the FPA process. Its inclusion would allow additional data collection necessary for function point count, reducing the occurrence of personal interpretations of the counter, and consequently, the variation of size reported. The approach was called as Function Point Tree-based Function Point Analysis (FPT-FPA). This work is based on the method of Design Science research, whose goal is to extend the limits of the human and organizational capacities, creating new artifacts to troubleshoot unresolved or still partially resolved; in this work, it is the lack of reliability in application of FPA because of its scope for different interpretations. FPT-FPA were tested with 11 Systems analysts / requirements analysts, based on the specification of a human resources software measured by the IFPUG with 125 points, have modeled the function point Tree manually or via automated tool prototype developed. The results obtained indicate that the functional sizes calculated with FPT-FPA have coefficient of variation, respectively of 10.72% for reliability and 17.61% in relation to the validity of the measurement results generated. The FPA approach showed potential for better results can be obtained. It turns out that the main cause of the variations observed were related to the absence of information required for the tree of function points have not been identified any particular problem regarding the rules defined for FPT-FPA. Finally, it was found that the use of a prototype tool increases by up to 47% on efficiency function point count when compared to FPT-FPA manual

Software project management is arguably the most important activity in modern software development projects. In the absence of realistic and objective management, the software development process cannot be managed in an effective way. Software development effort estimation is one of the most challenging and researched problems in project management. With the advent of object-oriented development, there have been studies to transpose some of the existing effort estimation methodologies to the new development paradigm. However, there is not in existence a holistic approach to estimation that allows for the refinement of an initial estimate produced in the requirements gathering phase through to the design phase. A SysML point methodology is proposed that is based on a common, structured and comprehensive modeling language (OMG SysML) that factors in the models that correspond to the primary phases of object-oriented development into producing an effort estimate. This dissertation presents a Function Point-like approach, named Pattern Point, which was conceived to estimate the size of object-oriented products using the design patterns found in object interaction modeling from the late OO analysis phase. In particular, two measures are proposed (PP1 and PP2) that are theoretically validated showing that they satisfy wellknown properties necessary for size measures. An initial empirical validation is performed that is meant to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed measures in predicting the development effort of object-oriented systems. Moreover, a comparative analysis is carried out; taking into account several other size measures. The experimental results show that the Pattern Point measure can be effectively used during the OOA phase to predict the effort values with a high degree of confidence. The PP2 metric yielded the best results with an aggregate PRED (0.25) = 0.874.

功能點分析(Function Point Analysis)為一種考量資訊系統商業實務貢獻的功能複雜度指標，過去數十年來，許多學者對此指標的應用有過廣泛研究，但是，應用於某些領域的系統仍未有深入探討。例如本研究使用的個案，是一個點對點訊息傳遞資訊系統，其特性是採用同儕計算架構(Peer－to－Peer, P2P)，並使用後設資料模型(Meta-data Model)進行資料塑模，使用功能點分析模型進行研究，透過實際的估算步驟，期望能夠提出功能點分析的適用性問題，以求進一步應用於業界及後續學術研究。

Submitted by Irene Nascimento (irene.kessia@ufpe.br) on 2017-03-08T19:19:52Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_FelipeOliveiraBarbalho.pdf: 1338681 bytes, checksum: 59450531ef14c232cbd53efcacba8b7e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-08T19:19:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_FelipeOliveiraBarbalho.pdf: 1338681 bytes, checksum: 59450531ef14c232cbd53efcacba8b7e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-28 / Há uma tendência das organizações que atuam no desenvolvimento e manutenção de software em utilizarem Pontos de Função como medida padrão em seus processos de medição. Atualmente a análise de pontos de função é a técnica mais utilizada entre as organizações brasileiras. Por outro lado, o COSMIC é uma técnica de medição considerada como a segunda geração em método de medição funcional de projetos de desenvolvimento e manutenção de software, sendo precisa e abrangente para medir software e estimar esforço de desenvolvimento, despertando o interesse do mercado de desenvolvimento de software por essa métrica. Quando considerada a migração das bases históricas de medição de software das organizações para uma nova unidade de medida, há como consequência um alto custo para se medir os projetos legados. Nesse sentido, o objetivo desse trabalho é propor uma alternativa para migração de bases históricas de Pontos de Função para o COSMIC. A abordagem propõe uma fórmula de conversão, o qual foi encontrada a partir da medição de quatro projetos de desenvolvimento de software analisados nessas duas técnicas, para atualizar seus dados sem o custo de refazer toda sua base histórica. / There is a tendency in software development and maintenance organizations in using Function Points as a standard measure in their measurement processes. Currently the analysis of function points is the most used technique among Brazilian organizations. On the other hand, COSMIC is a measurement technique considered as the secondgeneration method of functional measurement for software development and maintenance projects, with an accurate and comprehensive approach to measure and estimate software development effort, arousing interest of software development market for this metric. When organizations are considering the migration of their historical measure basis for a new measurement unit, there is a consequent high cost to measure the legacy projects. In this sense, the purpose of this work is to propose an alternative to migrate historical bases of Function Points to COSMIC. The approach proposes a conversion factor, which was found from the measurement of four software development projects analyzed in these two techniques to update its data without the cost of redoing the entire historical basis.

La nécessité d'estimer la taille d’un logiciel pour pouvoir en estimer le coût et l’effort nécessaire à son développement est une conséquence de l'utilisation croissante des logiciels dans presque toutes les activités humaines. De plus, la nature compétitive de l’industrie du développement logiciel rend courante l’utilisation d’estimations précises de leur taille, au plus tôt dans le processus de développement. Traditionnellement, l’estimation de la taille des logiciels était accomplie a posteriori à partir de diverses mesures appliquées au code source. Cependant, avec la prise de conscience, par la communauté de l’ingénierie logicielle, que l’estimation de la taille du code est une donnée cruciale pour la maîtrise du développement et des coûts, l’estimation anticipée de la taille des logiciels est devenue une préoccupation répandue. Une fois le code écrit, l’estimation de sa taille et de son coût permettent d'effectuer des études contrastives et éventuellement de contrôler la productivité. D’autre part, les bénéfices apportés par l'estimation de la taille sont d'autant plus grands que cette estimation est effectuée tôt pendant le développement. En outre, si l’estimation de la taille peut être effectuée périodiquement au fur et à mesure de la progression de la conception et du développement, elle peut fournir des informations précieuses aux gestionnaires du projet pour suivre au mieux la progression du développement et affiner en conséquence l'allocation des ressources. Notre recherche se positionne autour des mesures d’estimation de la taille fonctionnelle, couramment appelées Analyse des Points de Fonctions, qui permettent d’estimer la taille d’un logiciel à partir des fonctionnalités qu’il doit fournir à l’utilisateur final, exprimées uniquement selon son point de vue, en excluant en particulier toute considération propre au développement. Un problème significatif de l'utilisation des points de fonction est le besoin d'avoir recours à des experts humains pour effectuer la quotation selon un ensemble de règles de comptage. Le processus d'estimation représente donc une charge de travail conséquente et un coût important. D'autre part, le fait que les règles de comptage des points de fonction impliquent nécessairement une part d'interprétation humaine introduit un facteur d'imprécision dans les estimations et rend plus difficile la reproductibilité des mesures. Actuellement, le processus d'estimation est entièrement manuel et contraint les experts humains à lire en détails l'intégralité des spécifications, une tâche longue et fastidieuse. Nous proposons de fournir aux experts humains une aide automatique dans le processus d'estimation, en identifiant dans le texte des spécifications, les endroits les plus à même de contenir des points de fonction. Cette aide automatique devrait permettre une réduction significative du temps de lecture et de réduire le coût de l'estimation, sans perte de précision. Enfin, l’identification non ambiguë des points de fonction permettra de faciliter et d'améliorer la reproductibilité des mesures. À notre connaissance, les travaux présentés dans cette thèse sont les premiers à se baser uniquement sur l’analyse du contenu textuel des spécifications, applicable dès la mise à disposition des spécifications préliminaires et en se basant sur une approche générique reposant sur des pratiques établies d'analyse automatique du langage naturel. / The inevitable emergence of the necessity to estimate the size of a software thus estimating the probable cost and effort is a direct outcome of increasing need of complex and large software in almost every conceivable situation. Furthermore, due to the competitive nature of the software development industry, the increasing reliance on accurate size estimation at early stages of software development becoming a commonplace practice. Traditionally, estimation of software was performed a posteriori from the resultant source code and several metrics were in practice for the task. However, along with the understanding of the importance of code size estimation in the software engineering community, the realization of early stage software size estimation, became a mainstream concern. Once the code has been written, size and cost estimation primarily provides contrastive study and possibly productivity monitoring. On the other hand, if size estimation can be performed at an early development stage (the earlier the better), the benefits are virtually endless. The most important goals of the financial and management aspect of software development namely development cost and effort estimation can be performed even before the first line of code is being conceived. Furthermore, if size estimation can be performed periodically as the design and development progresses, it can provide valuable information to project managers in terms of progress, resource allocation and expectation management. This research focuses on functional size estimation metrics commonly known as Function Point Analysis (FPA) that estimates the size of a software in terms of the functionalities it is expected to deliver from a user’s point of view. One significant problem with FPA is the requirement of human counters, who need to follow a set of standard counting rules, making the process labour and cost intensive (the process is called Function Point Counting and the professional, either analysts or counters). Moreover, these rules, in many occasion, are open to interpretation, thus they often produce inconsistent counts. Furthermore, the process is entirely manual and requires Function Point (FP) counters to read large specification documents, making it a rather slow process. Some level of automation in the process can make a significant difference in the current counting practice. Automation of the process of identifying the FPs in a document accurately, will at least reduce the reading requirement of the counters, making the process faster and thus shall significantly reduce the cost. Moreover, consistent identification of FPs will allow the production of consistent raw function point counts. To the best of our knowledge, the works presented in this thesis is an unique attempt to analyse specification documents from early stages of the software development, using a generic approach adapted from well established Natural Language Processing (NLP) practices.

<p>Due to changes in the economy, the Department of Defense is requiring dramatic changes in its procurement process for major systems. These changes attempt to leverage from the large quantity of commercial software that is currently on the. market. As a result, better estimating techniques are required to properly account for software reuse. For government agencies, these techniques must be understood and applied when validating and tracking contractor performance. An industry survey was performed and subsequently two techniques were evaluated. The evaluation criteria used is consistent with the attributes of the systems engineering process. This project will evaluate the two most widely used; function point analysis and rule of thumb analysis were selected for computing the cost of a specified software intensive project.</p> / Master of Science