Estimating the Size for IT Systems
This paper is based on work performed over the past 12 years estimating and measuring
Information Technology projects. Over 100 projects have been taken through this
process and a variety of cost models have been used to estimate effort and schedule. The
projects are from the following sources
 Fidelity Investments
 US Army
 Navy
 Air Force
 Internal Revenue Service
 The National Archives,
 Federal Aviation Agency,
 The Department of Commerce
 Credit Agricole
 Total Oil.
The genesis of this work is at Goddard Space Flight Center (1987 – 1994) where we
attempted to predict Source Lines of Code for Space Network software projects using
function point analysis. This work was modified at Fidelity Investments (1996 – 2001)
where it was necessary to estimate project size in a simpler fashion than full detailed
function point counts, and to improve the acceptance of functional size estimation.
This paper is also an update of that work first presented to the LA Spin and the
COCOMO Users Group called “Fast Function Points”. The work has evolved to include
more capability to estimate software intensive projects in the concept phase. It has also
evolved to link software size estimation into related business processes such as software
requirements analysis and business process modeling. The technique has been
successfully applied to large ERP implementations in the private sector, DoD and
Civilian Agencies. Attempts have been made to simplify the semantics of the technique
to eliminate some of the obstacles to complete acceptance of full function point
techniques.
Topics to be discussed will include:
1. Background of Fast Function Points: Fast Function Points is a simplified
technique to estimate function point size for IT systems.
2. Real life example: How to count fast function points for an existing application.
3. Estimation of functional size from high level systems requirements: An example
of how to count function points from requirements.
4. Mapping functional size to business processes: How to link software size to
business processes and simplify business case analysis.
5. Enterprise Resource Planning estimation: How to apply fast function points to
ERP applications.
6. Agile Development: Fast was actually created to support SCRUM pilot projects at
Fidelity Investments.
7. How to make EVM successful in Information Technology Systems. Linking
EVM to business processes and user interfaces.
8. Integrating software size estimation with Information Technology Governance
and Compliance.
David Seaver
Technical Director
PRICE Systems LLC
856-630-2323
David.seaver@pricesystems.com