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Quick Function Point

The Joint 13th CSI/IFPUG International Software Measurement & Analysis (ISMA13) Conference

Mumbai (India) – March 6, 2017

Bhawna Thakur

Bhawna.thakur@cgi.com

Bhawna has 16 years of core IT Services experience of

successful Program Management, Project Implementation,

Participation in RFPs through Estimation & Cost framework

build tools and process for account/organization, bid

consultancy, establish metrication for organization through

Benchmarking and Baselining, SLA , KPI negotiations with

customer and customer interaction at leadership level

across the globe.

Bhawna is currently working with CGI. She is a corporate

member of CGI’s Global Estimation Centre.

CGI Group Inc. more commonly known as CGI, is a Canadian

Global information technology (IT) consulting, systems integration,

outsourcing, and solutions company headquartered in Montreal,

Quebec, Canada with an employee strength of 71000 spread across

globe.

Accelerate your sizing process

© CGI Group Inc.

Quick Function Point (QFP)To accelerate your Sizing Process

Bhawna Thakur

Topics in this presentation

• The challenges with sizing of applications

• The benefits of Quick Function Point (QFP)

• How QFP works

How it should not work

3

• Solution defined by architects

• First sizing for ROM Estimate

4

Ideally we follow the Estimation Lifecycle

• Detailed sizing

• Size based estimates

• Estimation reviews

• Effort, duration, quality, peak staff

• Reporting

• Engagement control

• Collection of actual data

• Re-estimations due to scope changes

• Collect and analyze actual data

• Verify performance (benchmarking)

• Maintain data as input for new estimates

EAS

Solution

Estimating

Engagement execution

and control

Metrics collection

But Bid/ Project teams avoid sizing

5

• Details not available during estimation

• Acceptable sizing method

• 3rd party auditable

• Time spent is money spent

• High cost of certified specialists

• High turnaround time

• Takes time to understand scope by certified sizing person

Time Cost

AccuracyIndustry Standard

6

A typical RFP scenario faced by Sizing Expert

RFP received

Bid Team identified

Architects involved

1st cut estimates

Optimized estimates

Financial approvals

RFP submission

• Constrained timelines for a sizing expert

• Scope not very clear to tell it out

• Iteration on scope and estimates goes on

• RFP questionnaire response comes very late

Quick Function Point – Sizing accelerator

• QFP has been designed such

• That not only the certified sizing specialists can do the sizing

• That it can be used by Estimation and Project teams

• That it results in a functional size with a bearable accuracy in least

amount of time and effort

• QFP provides comparable functional size with IFPUG / NESMA

• No more excuses on why sizing cannot be done

7

• Reduced training effort by 50%

• Difference of +/- 8% on size

Benefits compared with IFPUG FPA

8

• Reduced sizing effort (cost) by 73%

• Possibilities of functional sizing by everyone

Quick Function Point (QFP)

9

A Functional Sizing method

Approach for QFP

10

• Based on the Proxy based sizing method

• Yields a functional size

• Take into account both the business requirements and the

solution design

• Platform or technology specific proxies based on functional view:

• Users know their need

• Architects know what user needs

What is a Proxy

• A Proxy is a component or element of software which is recognized in

order to build or enhance software projects and it is

• Meaningful to local estimators

• Correlates with business / functional requirements, design elements

or software components

• Can be used to size a system without expert knowledge of

(standard) functional sizing method

• Proxies are also defined as:

• a customized measurement for software size

• a way to relate the software being developed (or enhanced) with

the effort required

11

Functional Proxies :Transaction & Data

12

OTHER OUTPUTS

• REPORTS

• FILES

• XML

• VIEWS

• XML

• FICHE

• TAPE

• DISKETTES

• LETTERS

• NOTICES

• ALARMS

APPLICATION

BOUNDARY

INTERNAL LOGICAL FILES

(TABLES, DATA FILES,

CONTROL FILES)

INPUT FILES AND INPUT

TRANSACTIONS

(BATCH INTERFACES,

WEB SERVICES)

CONTROL

INFORMATION

Logical

Entities -

Internal

EXTERNAL

TABLES & FILES

REFERENCED from other

applications

(Not Maintained)

OUTPUT FILES

AND OUTPUT

TRANSACTIONS

(BATCH

INTERFACES, WEB

SERVICES)

Background

Processes – Batch -

Inbound

Search /

View /

Query /

Reports

Logical

Entities -

External

Background

Processes –

Batch -

Outbound

Web

Services /

Interfaces -

Inbound

Web

Services /

Interfaces -

Outbound

SCREENS

(ADDS, CHANGES,

DELETES, QUERIES)User

Interfaces

Proxy Based Sizing Process

Identify Proxies

Categorise Proxies

Assign Default Complexity

Calibrate Proxies

complexity• Optional

Compute Project Size

Identify Proxies - 1

• Estimation Teams shall build functional proxies based on platforms or

scenarios to relate with

• List of Generic Proxies that can be used in most of the situations

• Internal Logical Data Entity

• External Logical Data Entity

• User Input Interface

• Search / View / Query

• Reports

• Background process

• Message

• Web Services

• Interface

• Solution Specific proxies: SAP, SharePoint, Data Warehouse

• Example of SAP Proxies

Identify Proxies - 2

Proxy Definition

R Report Accounted for any report with code related work

I Interface – Inbound Accounted when data is being fetched from an external source to store within the module / submodule

Interface – Outbound Accounted when data is being sent to an external application

C Data Conversion One-time Interface – Inbound with data transformation logic

E Enhancement Accounted for any development work to enhance a standard elementaty function, or add a new elementary function

F Forms Accounted when a form is required to display or report data

W Workflow Accounted for each customised workflow level

Categorize Proxies

• Categorization do not impact the size, but it has a significant impact

on the effort estimate

Standard / As Is

Configured

Custom / New

Adaptation / Modified

Assign Default Proxy Complexity

• All proxies are assigned IFPUG weightage of

• Transaction – Average

• Data – Low

• A study of nearly 20 projects were undertaken to prove the hypothesis

• Transaction @ Average and Data @ Low

• In Datawarehouse data can be kept at average or high depending on

the type of project

Calibrate Proxy Complexity - Optional

• Defining Proxy complexity is an optional step that will help to refine

the size

• The level of complexity is based on the assessment of the number of

Data Elements addressed by the proxies

• which can be Low, Average or High,

Compute Project Size

• Project size in computed in Function Points and broken down per

category (Standard, Configuration, Adaption, Custom-Made)

• Example:

Standard proxies: 0

Configuration proxies: 320 FP

Adaptation proxies: 120 FP

Custom-made proxies: 205 FP

Total Size: 645 FP

QFP vs. IFPUG – Recent study

Product/Team IFPUG FP Count Ideal QFP %diff

Project A 319 339 6%

Project B 131 138 5%

Project C 133 144 8%

Project D 46 43 -7%

Product/Team IFPUG FP Count Team Counted QFP %diff

Project A 319 377 15%

Project B 131 128 -2%

Project C 133 126 -6%

Project D 46 39 -18%

Product/Team IFPUG FP Count Project LOCBackfired FP -Through Caper

Jones tables

Project A 319

Project B 131 7100 323

Project C 133 8500 262

Project D 46

Ideal PBM : PBM is done by a person who has practiced Function Point on few projects in past and is either a certified candidate or well

versed with IFPUG FP so that the Data and Transaction identified is same for IFPUG and PBM

Team Counted PBM : The size displayed by PBM is from the real time project which is undertaken just after the training is over. We let

participants count with QFP without any interference from trainer and record the results.

Project LOC : It is used to prove that backfiring with caper jones table is not a good idea. We need to find a representative gearing factor

if really we want LOC to FP conversion

QFP vs. IFPUG POC – Other Data Points

• Average 0% difference

• 75% of the samples

have been counted by

the project teams after

the QFP training

QFP Size FP size Difference in %

20 21 -5%

26 26 0%

32 30 7%

59 63 -6%

72 73 -1%

70 77 -9%

98 99 -1%

98 104 -6%

111 111 0%

130 118 10%

179 167 7%

174 175 -1%

180 175 3%

191 191 0%

264 271 -3%

301 299 1%

700 646 8%

828 804 3%

QFP vs. IFPUG - Ease of use

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• Training• The effort spent in training the participants on QFP was approximately 4 hours

compared to approximately 8 -12 hours spent in training participants on IFPUG FP

• Effort spent on Sizing• The effort spent in sizing QFP is ~ 73 % less than actual IFPUG FP sizing

• based on the fact that 250 IFPUG Function Point (optimistic) can be counted in oneday by a newly trained resource.

QFP IFPUG FP % Difference

4 8 50%

4 8 50%

4 8 50%

QFP IFPUG FP % Difference

4 19 79%

2 5.6 64%

5.5 23.64 77%

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Conclusion

• QFP is a functional sizing method and tool that has potential to be

broadbased across organization unlike detailed (ISO standardized)

sizing methods

• Its ability to provide platform specific proxies makes it popular within

the architect and project communities as they relate their solution very

well with proxies

• It has helped project teams convince the customer on effort, cost and

productivity

• QFP has been a success story when implemented. It has been

implemented in 3 large organization having more than 1,50,000

employees including CGI

24

So…

• Are ISO Standardized methods not required anymore?

Definitely required !

For a method like QFP to be based on and relate with.

• Do you still need certified people?

Yes!

Only Certified people can validate the method and in many cases

(contracts) formal methods are required.

25

Next Steps – Calibration Results

Calibration is a concept of refining the complexity of proxies so that

computed size moves

• Closer to project size

• Closer to IFPUG FP size

Data points collection to prove the calibration results in

progress……………..

Thank You

For more details on QFP, please mail me at Bhawna.Thakur@cgi.com

https://in.linkedin.com/in/thakurbhawna

Questions?