The Estimation Challenges.- Estimation Fundamentals.- Prerequisites for Estimation.- The Implementation of Estimation.- Estimation Methods.- Estimating Maintenance Effort.- Software Measurement and Metrics: Fundamentals.- Product- and Process- Metrics.- Object-Oriented Metrics.- Measurement Communities and Resources.- Benchmarking of IT Projects.- The IFPUG Function Point Counting Method.- Functional Size Measurement Methods (FSMMs).- Variants of the IFPUG Function Point Counting Method.- Using Functional Size Measurement Methods.- Estimation of Data Warehouses, Web-Based Applications: Software Reuse and Redevelopment.- IFPUG Function Point Counting Rules.- Functional Size Measurement Case Studies.- Functional Size Measurement: Additional Case Studies.- Tools for Estimation.
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.
"This is a most useful and practical book. It should be on every
project manager's desk as a handy reference on all things dealing
with software measurement, estimation, benchmarking, and process
improvement. Easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to apply !"
Peter R. Hill, CEO, International Software Benchmarking Standards
Group "Carol Dekkers and Manfred Bundschuh have written an
excellent book that should be added to the collections of all
software managers and software metrics workers throughout the
world.
Measurement and estimation of software projects has been extremely
difficult for both technical and sociological reasons. The
technical reasons include scores of poorly defined and incompatible
metrics, gaps or "leakage" from historical data, and a rather
sparse collection of accurate benchmarks that were available to the
general software community.
The sociological reasons center around the adversarial
relationships between followers of rival metrics and measurement
practices. For many years the "lines of code" metrics users have
been at odds with the "function point" metrics users. Several other
forms of measurement such as Earned Value, Balanced Scorecards, and
Goal-Question metrics also have supporters, and tend to ignore
other forms of metrics.
In recent years the situation has become even more complex. As of
2008 there are at least 24 function point variants, five methods
for counting lines of code, and perhaps 15 other forms of
measurement such as Use Case Points, Story Points, object-oriented
metrics, and others too numerous to cite.
Dekkers and Bundschuh navigate this tricky area with clarity and
objectiveness. All of the major metrics variants are discussed and
explained, and their pros and cons are noted.
The book also discusses the organizations that are trying to
eliminate competition among the rival metrics camps, and achieve
some kind of consensus on what needs to be measured and how to go
about it. Although there is still antagonism among the various
rivals, this new book by Dekkers and Bundschuh is likely to be
useful in leading to common goals and mutual understanding of what
the various metrics were trying to accomplish.
Prior to the publication of this book, there was no easy way for
followers of various metrics to learn about the other
possibilities. While there are many books that discuss IFPUG
function points, COSMIC function points, Goal-Question metrics,
Balanced Scorecards, and all the others, this is the first book to
try and show all of the major metrics in one volume.
This new book is a worthy companion to older books such as Barry
Boehm's Software Engineering Economics, Steve McConnell's Software
Estimation, Richard Stutzke's Estimating Software-Intensive
Systems, Roger Pressman's Software Engineering - A Practitioner's
Approach, Steve Kan's Metrics and Models in Software Engineering,
and my own books Estimating Software Costs and Applied Software
Measurement. All of these books attempt to show the synergistic
relationships among wide-ranging topics, as does this new book by
Dekkers and Bundschuh."
Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus, Software Productivity
Research LLC
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