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An experimental study on the conversion between IFPUG and UCP functional size measurement units

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Abstract

The use of functional size measurement (FSM) methods in software development organizations is growing during the years. Also, object oriented (OO) techniques have become quite a standard to design the software and, in particular, Use Cases is one of the most used techniques to specify functional requirements. Main FSM methods do not include specific rules to measure the software functionality from its Use Cases analysis. To deal with this issue some other methods like Kramer’s functional measurement method have been developed. Therefore, one of the main issues for those organizations willing to use OO functional measurement method in order to facilitate the use cases count procedure is how to convert their portfolio functional size from the previously adopted FSM method towards the new method. The objective of this research is to find a statistical relationship for converting the software functional size units measured by the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) function point analysis (FPA) method into Kramer-Smith’s use cases points (UCP) method and vice versa. Methodologies for a correct data gathering are proposed and results obtained are analyzed to draw the linear and non-linear equations for this correlation. Finally, a conversion factor and corresponding conversion intervals are given to establish the statistical relationship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. École de Technologie Supérieure — ETS 1100 Notre-Dame Ouest, Montréal, QC, H3C 1K3, Canada

    Juan J. Cuadrado-Gallego & Alain Abran

  2. Computer Science Department, University of Alcala, Madrid, 28805, Spain

    Juan J. Cuadrado-Gallego, Pablo Rodríguez-Soria & Miguel A. Lara

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  1. Juan J. Cuadrado-Gallego
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  2. Alain Abran
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  3. Pablo Rodríguez-Soria
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  4. Miguel A. Lara
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Correspondence to Pablo Rodríguez-Soria.

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Electronic supplementary materials: The online version of this article (http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/jzus.C1300102) contains supplementary materials, which are available to authorized users

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Cuadrado-Gallego, J.J., Abran, A., Rodríguez-Soria, P. et al. An experimental study on the conversion between IFPUG and UCP functional size measurement units. J. Zhejiang Univ. - Sci. C 15, 161–173 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.C1300102

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