A COMPARISON OF FUNCTION POINT COUNTING TECHNIQUES

Effective management of the software development process requires that management be able to estimate total development effort and cost. One of the fundamental problems associated with effort and cost estimatio n is the a priori estimation of software size. Function point analysis has emerged over the last decade as a popular tool for this task. Fol lowing its use over this time, however, a number of criticisms of the method have emerged. These criticisms relate to the way in which funct ion counts are calculated and the impact of the processing complexity adjustment on the function point count. SPQR/20 function points among others are claimed to overcome some of these criticisms. This paper co mpares the SPQR/20 function point method to traditional function point analysis as a measure of software size in an empirical study of MIS e nvironments. In a study of 64 projects in one organization it was foun d that both methods would appear equally satisfactory. However consist ent use of one method should occur since the individual counts differ considerably.