DEVELOPMENTAL SIZE ESTIMATION FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE BASED ON ANALYSIS MODEL

Abstract

Software size estimation at the early analysis phase of software development lifecycle is crucial for predicting the associated effort and cost. Analysis phase captures the functionality addressed in the software to be developed in object-oriented software development life-cycle. Unified modeling language captures the functionality of the software at the analysis phase based on use case model. This paper proposes a new method named as use case model function point to estimate the size of the object-oriented software at the analysis phase itself. While this approach is based on use case model, it also adapts the function point analysis technique to use case model. The various features such as actors, use cases, relationship, external reference, flows, and messages are extracted from use case model. Eleven rules have been derived as guidelines to identify the use case model components. The function point analysis components are appropriately mapped to use case model components and the complexity based on the weightage is specified to calculate use case model function point. This proposed size estimation approach has been evaluated with the object-oriented software developed in our software engineering laboratory to assess its ability to predict the developmental size. The results are empirically analysed based on statistical correlation for substantiating the proposed estimation method.