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An Empirical Analysis of IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP Measurement Methods

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Information Technology and Systems (ICITS 2020)

Abstract

The accuracy of functional size measuring is critical in software project management, because it is one of the key inputs for effort and cost estimation models. The functional size measurement (FSM) process is performed based on standardized methods; however, the accuracy of the FSM results is still based mostly on the knowledge of the measurers. In this paper, an empirical study was conducted to analyze the accuracy, reproducibility, and acceptance properties of the IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP functional size measurement methods. Results show that the performance of participants in measuring the requirement specifications using IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP did not differ significantly in terms of accuracy and reproducibility. Likewise, acceptance properties such as perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention to use did not present significant differences. Our results suggest that novice measurers could apply both methods with similar results.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the University of Costa Rica No. 834-B8-A27. We thank all participants of the study and the Empirical Software Engineering Group at UCR for the valuable feedback.

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Correspondence to Christian Quesada-López .

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Quesada-López, C., Madrigal-Sánchez, D., Jenkins, M. (2020). An Empirical Analysis of IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP Measurement Methods. In: Rocha, Á., Ferrás, C., Montenegro Marin, C., Medina García, V. (eds) Information Technology and Systems. ICITS 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1137. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40690-5_26

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