A Metric of Software Size as a Tool for IT Governance
This work addresses IT governance challenges in software development by providing an improved metric for assessment and monitoring, though it is incremental as it builds on existing Function Point Analysis.
The paper tackled the problem of measuring software functional size by proposing a new metric, Functional Elements (EF), derived from Function Point Analysis but addressing its deficiencies, and found that EF and its submetric EFt had higher correlation with development effort than FPA in the analyzed data.
This paper proposes a new metric for software functional size, which is derived from Function Point Analysis (FPA), but overcomes some of its known defi- ciencies. The statistical results show that the new metric, Functional Elements (EF), and its submetric, Functional Elements of Transaction (EFt), have higher correlation with the effort in software development than FPA in the context of the analyzed data. The paper illustrates the application of the new metric as a tool to improve IT governance specifically in assessment, monitoring, and giving directions to the software development area.