Software Size Measurement and Productivity Rating in a Large-Scale Software Development Department

Abstract

Some current object-oriented analysis methods provide use cases. Scenarios or similar concepts to describe functional requirements for software systems. The authors introduced the use case point method to measure the size of large-scale software systems based on such requirements specifications. With the measured size and the measured effort the real productivity can be calculated in terms of delivered functionality. In the status report they summarize the experiences made with size metrics and productivity rates at a major Swiss banking institute. They analyzed the quality of requirements documents and the measured use case points in order to test and calibrate the use case point method. Experiences are based on empirical data of a productivity benchmark of 23 measured projects (quantitative analysis), 64 evaluated questionnaires of project members and 11 post benchmark interviews held with selected project managers (qualitative analysis).