A Function Point Formulation for the Software Release Planning Problem
Márcio de Oliveira Barros, Vitor Padilha Gonçalves · 2019
Background: Function point analysis is frequently used to provide early effort estimations for software development. If the effort is large enough, the software tends to be delivered incrementally, its requirements being partitioned into a set of releases. Aims: This work explores the structure of function point analysis to allow deploying more requirements into releases of a software system using the same amount of development effort. To afford these extra requirements, our approach exploits opportunities provided by the estimation procedure. Method: An experimental study was organized to compare the approach with the state-of-practice method of FPA-based estimation using data from four real-world projects. Results: Our findings suggest that stakeholder satisfaction, measured as the ratio of delivered to desired requirements, can be increased by 6.5% if data functions are grouped in estimation. Conclusions: We present actionable advice for companies providing or procuring software development services on the form of effort unit contracts.