IT Measurement Compendium: Estimating and Benchmarking Success With Functional Size Measurement

“As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their - perience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it…. Fallible estimates: In software development, initial estimates for a project shape the trajectory of decisions that a manager makes over its life. For ex- ple, estimates of the productivity of the team members influence decisions about the size of the team, which in turn affect the team’s actual output. The trouble is that initial estimates usually turn out to be wrong. ” (Sengupta, 2008) This book aims directly to increase the awareness among managers and practitioners that estimation is as important as the work to be done in so- ware and systems development. You can manage what you can measure! Readers will find in this book a collection of lessons learned from the worldwide “metrics community,” which we have documented and enhanced with our own experiences in the field of software measurement and estimating. Our goal is to support our readers to harvest the benefits of estimating and - prove their software development processes. We present the 5 ISO/I- acknowledged Functional Sizing Methods with variants, experiences, counting rules, and case studies – and most importantly, illustrate through practical - amples how to use functional size measurement to produce realistic estimates. The book is written in a practical manner, especially for the busy practitioner community. It is aimed to be used as a manual and an assistant for everyday work.

Manfred Bundschuh is an internationally recognized expert on software measurement, estimating and international standards, with more than 40 years' IT experience, as an IT controller, consultant, and project manager. In addition, he has been teaching software engineering and project management at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany, for more than 25 years. For the last 5 years he has been President of DASMA e.V., the metrics organization of the German-speaking countries.

Carol Dekkers is the president of Quality Plus Technologies, Inc., and a recognized expert in software measurement, functional size measurement, quality, scope management, and project management. Carol is a frequent keynote presenter at international conferences and the author of more than 60 articles and co-author of three books. She is a delegate to ISO/IEC for the United States (since 1994) and has worked for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) as a visiting scientist. She is a professional engineer (Canada), a Certified Management Consultant (CMC), a Project Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS). Carol is active in the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG), International Function Point Users Group (past-president), PMI Metrics SIG (past chair) and a variety of other industry groups.