S. Oligny

Developing project duration models in software engineering

Based on the empirical analysis of data contained in the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) repository, this paper presents software engineering project duration models based on project effort. Duration models are built for the entire dataset and for subsets of projects developed for personal computer, mid-range and mainframe platforms. Duration models are also constructed for projects requiring fewer than 400 person-hours of effort and for projects requiring more than 400 person-hours of effort. The usefulness of adding the maximum number of assigned resources as a second independent variable to explain duration is also analyzed. The opportunity to build duration models directly from project functional size in function points is investigated as well.

COSMIC FFP and the World-Wide Field Trials Strategy

Building on the strengths of previous work in the field of software functional size measurement, the Common Software Measurement International Consortium (COSMIC) proposed a set of principles in 1998 onto which a new generation of functional size measurement methods could be built. The COSMIC group then published version 2.0 of COSMIC-FFP, in 1999, as an example of a functional size measurement method built on those principles. Key concepts of its design and of the structure of its measurement process are presented, as well as the strategy of its world-wide field trials.