The Large Hadron Collider came on linethis morning. The impact of what thisincredible piece of science will tell us abouthow our universe operates is immeasurable.

Another dramatic change occurred earlier this year, maybe toslightly less fanfare but the impact has the same potential tochange the IFPUG world. The Certified Function Point Specialist(CFPS) exam went online. The electronic version of the exam

has replaced ALL English language paper exams as of July 2008. Other languageswill be added in the near future (Portuguese is next). Just think of it, you are now able to take the CFPS test whenever and where ever you want. You can actually schedule your exam online 24x7 at your local Prometric Testing Center(http://www.prometric.com/Candidates/default.htm). I remember the first time we discussed automating the exam at a Board meeting I attended. There werenaysayers who felt the exam could never be automated but everyone agreed itshould be researched. The President at the time, Mauricio Aguiar, steadfastlychampioned the idea (one person can certainly change the world). In the long run,research and facts replaced opinion, and the decision was made. The project forautomating the exam was taken up by the Certification Committee and progressbegan immediately. This was the tipping point, the point where the universe (or at least the exam part) of the CFPS began to change. You may have missed thechange when it began but it is here now and the world is different. I am almostlooking forward to taking the test in the near future.

The incredible effort of the Certification Committee highlights the great strengthof IFPUG – the volunteers. I have been impressed at the effectiveness of the com-mittee bringing this project in on time, on budget and with an incredible level ofquality. I may sound a bit like a broken record but associations are reflections oftheir members. Don’t be the last person on your block to get involved. Whether the change you are waking up to is the Large Hadron Collider or the automatedCFPS exam, remember the world has not ended and we are all far richer for their existence.

Thomas M. Cagley, Jr.IFPUG President

Message fromthe President

Inside...Message from the President 1

Chapter Focus – Korea 3

Committee Reports 4

What’s Your Function Point 14

IFPUG Board of Directors 15

Committee Members 15

Feature Article: Function Point Counting Patterns 16

Vendors World! Vendors World! 19

New CFPS 20

New CSMS 21

continued on page 3

F a l l 2 0 0 8 • V o l . 2 • I s s u e 2w w w . i f p u g . o r g

A Message from the IFPUG Office We hope each of you who attended our recent conference in Washington, DC

had the opportunity to truly take in what IFPUG is all about! We thoroughlyenjoyed putting the conference together for you and took great pleasure in havingthe benefit of meeting everyone in person. We look forward to you coming againnext year to the “Windy City” – Chicago – to celebrate IFPUG’s 4th Annual ISMAConference.

Much has happened since our last MetricViews issue. One of the most positivechanges is IFPUG’s recent implementation of CFPS exam automation. Whileadjusting to sitting for an electronic exam is a change, the benefits to examineesare many – convenience of time, local exam sites worldwide, and instant graderesults top the list. Exam automation means changes for us at the IFPUG Office as well, but in tandem with the Certification Committee, we are excited about this innovation. We are eager to provide IFPUG and its members all necessities to make automation successful, so please let us know if you have questions. ISMA 4 in Chicago!

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 3

IFPUG Board of Directors

In the meantime, we continue toprovide our membership with pertinentinformation regarding anything andeverything IFPUG related. This isdone through quick correspondenceby both phone and email. We are hereto service the needs of the memberbase, and try to do this to the best ofour abilities.

We are very pleased to formallyannounce our new Meeting Planneron the IFPUG team – Diane Galante.Those of you who attended the ISMAConference in DC saw first-hand howwell Diane runs an event. She wasresponsible for all things meetingrelated – no small task with IFPUG!

Diane is already working with the historic Palmer House Hilton in preparation for the 2009 ISMAConference in Chicago.

As the function point industry continues to thrive and change, we at CMA do as well. Combining the two is a recipe for success. The goal continues to be improving ourcapabilities to the IFPUG communityby providing, implementing, and act-ing upon the best possible methodsfor success.

Barbara SwandaIFPUG Executive Director609/ 799-4900bswanda@cmasolutions.com

MetricViewsis published twice a year by the

International Function Point UsersGroup (IFPUG), headquartered in

Princeton Junction, New Jersey, U.S.A.

MetricViews Fall 2008

EditorChris Kohnz

IFPUG Board of DirectorsPresidentTom Cagley

Vice PresidentBruce Rogora

SecretaryChris Kohnz

TreasurerMary Dale

Past PresidentMauricio Aguiar

Mary BradleyLoredana Frallicciardi

Joe SchofieldMárcio Silveira

IFPUG OfficeAssociation Manager

Barbara Swanda

Assistant Association ManagerChristopher Decker

Meeting PlannerDiane Galante

Executive AdvisorAl Vrancart

Please submit all articles, news releases and advertising to:

IFPUG / MetricViews191 Clarksville Road

Princeton Junction, NJ 08550609/ 799-4900

ifpug@ifpug.org www.ifpug.org

IFPUG Office, continued from page 1

Chapter Focus - BrazilBFPUG - a reference in the chapter world

As the primary Brazilian organizationpromoting the utilization of IFPUGFunction Points, BFPUG (BrazilianFunction Point Users Group) hasbecome a reference in Brazil since itsinception in 1998. Currently FunctionPoints are being used in Brazil in several ways: for software sizing andestimation, productivity analysis andeven for billing purposes. Boastingmore than 250 Certified FunctionPoint Specialists, Brazil is a leadingedge country in Function Point certifi-cation and utilization. With the newCFPS automated exam being translatedto Portuguese the expectation is thatthe number of CFPSs may even doublein the next six to 12 months.

The BFPUG website atwww.bfpug.com.br is a source ofinformation about Function Pointsand metrics in Brazilian Portuguese.The site became a reference for practitioners where they can find

information about CFPS exams, general news about Function Points,articles for free download, and how to sign-up for the BFPUG Yahoo discussion group.

The BFPUG Yahoo forum, with over1200 registered members, is anotherhighly successful BFPUG initiative.Every message is moderated and thereare strict rules against misuse (e.g.advertising, messages unrelated toFunction Points, SPAM, etc.). Morethan 70 messages are received month-ly with peaks of 100-120 messages.

All BFPUG work is done by volunteers in coordination with theIFPUG Certification Committee andthe IFPUG Office. If you want to know more about BFPUG please contact Mauricio Aguiar(mauricio@metricas.com.br) or Márcio Silveira(marcio.silveira@eds.com).

CURRENT CONTACT INFORMATION?

To ensure you do not miss out on any IFPUG communications, pleasenotify the IFPUG Office immediately of any changes to your email or

postal address. You may do so in one of the following ways:Email to ifpug@ifpug.org, call 609/ 799-4900, fax 609/ 799-7032

Write to: IFPUG, 191 Clarksville Road, Princeton Junction, NJ 08550

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 84

Committee Reports

ConferenceCommitteeBy Deborah Harris, Chair

2008 International SoftwareMeasurement & AnalysisConference (ISMA) Recap

We had the distinct honor to host 16countries during this year’s conference.Represented were Australia, Brazil,Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, England,Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea,Mexico, Netherlands, Slovenia,Sweden and the USA. The membersand guests from these countries participated as presenters and registered attendees!

In addition to our keynote and fea-tured presenters, we had the privilegeof hosting 25 fantastic speakers whocovered a variety of topics includingfunction point analysis, metrics, software estimation, executive man-agement, and project management.

Fifty percent of Overall ConferenceRespondents rated this conference“Excellent;” 42% rated the conference“Good” and the balance just didn’tcheck a box! What did they like most about the conference? Most presentations, informal atmosphere,presentation, organization, the varietyof speakers & topics, diversity oftracks, good contact for follow up,networking opportunities, practicalexperienced speakers…”

The quality of the presentations ismeasured by the feedback received.While, as of this writing, the speakerfeedback has not been totally calculatedand scored, a high-level review indicates, and is substantiated by the overall feedback forms, that themajority of the presenters and topicsmet or exceeded expectations in quality and delivery.

Following is a brief recap of theconference.

The unofficial opening of the conference began with ConferenceCommittee Chair Deborah Harris welcoming everyone able to join usfor Tuesday evening’s presentations.

Tuesday’s lineup began with SteveWoodward’s update on the activitiesof the New Environments Committee,followed by Kriste Lawrence and GregAllen providing us an update on theCFPS Exam Automation, One YearLater. If you were in Las Vegas for the unveiling of the IFPUG-Prometricplan to automate the CFPS Exam, you know that the CertificationCommittee introduced us to thedetails of this project. This year wefound out that the automated CFPSExam is now live and available world-wide. Adri Timp closed the eveningwith a review of the 4.3 IFPUGCounting Practices Manual.

Wednesday’s agenda began withBruce Rogora, IPFUG Vice President,providing an orientation for newmembers. This was followed by DanBradley and Christine Green from theIFPUG IT Performance Committeesharing an update on the TechnicalSize Project.

The conference officially com-menced with a Welcome from IFPUGPresident Tom Cagley, followed byour keynote address from CapersJones, President & CEO of CapersJones & Associates. Mr. Jones, aninternational consultant on softwaremanagement topics, a speaker, semi-nar leader and author of 13 books and more than 250 journal articles onsoftware management, delivered his“Using Function Points for EconomicAnalysis of Software Methodologies”to a standing room only crowd! Here’swhat the people said… “Wealth of

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 5

Committee Reports

information, more time would havebeen great,” “Capers always presentsinnovative and appealing presenta-tions. Excellent choice to bring him to ISMA,” “Awesome!” “Great!”

The metrics track was again wellattended for ISMA3. It was given agreat kick off Wednesday morningwith Agnes Nanu’s “Call 911-Measurement Needs CPR” detailinghow to implement key measurementconcepts and how to bring programsin trouble back to success. Next, we had “Guerilla Metrics” by BillHufschmidt detailing how to useSavings and Value metrics that will get management’s attention and howyou can be the messenger bearinggood news. This was followed by Don Beckett’s “Using Metrics toDevelop a Software Project Strategy”which helps clear up the misconcep-tions regarding the relationship andtrade-offs between cost, schedule andquality. Wednesday wrapped up withErika Vintan’s “Measurement Reports”detailing the value of metrics report-ing and how to best utilize them.

That evening, ISMA3 attendeesunwound at the Vendor Fair, enjoyinglight appetizers and an open bar.Participating vendors includedCharismatek Software Metrics, DavidConsulting Group, Pragma SystemsCorporation, Q/P Management Group,Quantitative Software Management,Software Measurement Expertise andTotal Metrics.

The Estimation Track began with a bang on Wednesday thanks to JoeSchofield’s interactive “EstimatingLatent Defects using Capture-Recapture: Lessons from Biology,” inwhich participants worked in groupsto identify differences between picturesof the same rooms, and extrapolatedthat experience to defect-removalprocesses. Dr. Ales Zivkovic followedthis with “How to Estimate SoftwareSize & Effort in Iterative Development,”providing participants with strategiesto cope with challenges such as miss-ing data and the influences of varyingabstraction levels. This track concludedwith Mauricio Aguiar’s “Monte Carlo,

Resampling & Other Estimation Tricks,”in which participants saw simple techniques that can be used to addresscomplex problems.

The Function Point Track also beganon Wednesday with Anthony Rollo’s“Counting Infrastructures,” whichhelped conference attendees understandissues when counting components andpossible pitfalls when reporting thesecounts.

The third track on Wednesday,Executive Management, featured“Function Points in Contracts” presented by Christine Green whereshe spoke about the benefits and pitfalls of using Function Points in a contractual agreement. FollowingChristine was Terry Vogt’s “GoalDriven Performance Measurement.”The highlights of Terry’s presentation

continued on page 6

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 86

Committee Reports

included the fundamental problems of measurement design, the need toprioritize objectives and the measure-ment design process. Peter Thomasended the day with “Enterprise ITMeasurement” focusing on the components of an Enterprise IT measurement system, the pros andcons of different infrastructures andhints and tips for data analysis andreporting.

The Metrics Track continued onThursday with Jaisankar Muthukrishnanand “Implementing Agile MeasurementPrograms,” detailing an Agile metricsprogram to identify and classify met-rics needs, implement tools, improvedata quality and analyze the metrics.Scott Goldfarb then discussed“Relationships among SoftwareMetrics in Benchmarking” answeringquestions such as: How does produc-tivity correlate with size, technology,time to market, quality and processmaturity? How productivity changesover time? And why there are signifi-cant variations in productivity?Thursday concluded with ClaudiaHazan and “How to Avoid Traps inContract for Software Factory Basedon Function Point Metrics” whichinformed attendees on how to usefunction point based metrics in contracts.

Function Point Track attendees continued on Thursday with a full dayof presentations, featuring Adri Timp’s“FPA Applied with UML/Use Case,”which featured a study conducted by the NESMA task force, and DebraMachino’s briefing on an age-old question: “Can SAP be Function PointCounted?” This track concluded witha joint session hosted by RaymondBoehm and Royce Edwards “CountingWeb 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0,” which provideda humorous history of the evolution ofthe web along with items to considerwhen counting such applications.

Thursday was also the day of theProject Management Track, which fea-tured Steve Keim and David Garmus.Steve Keim’s “Using Function Pointsfor Project Tracking & Earned ValueAnalysis” showed participants ameans to allocate value within their

organization and to compute earnedvalue using a phased functionalapproach. David Garmus asked “AreYou Managing IT, or Is IT ManagingYou?” emphasizing how measurementmust match the business user needs.

Lest we forgot our featured speaker,Bill Phifer and the eSourcing CapabilityMaturity Model. Bill discussed therole of measurement and analysiswithin sourcing relationships and thebest practices from the eSourcingCapability Maturity Model for ServiceProviders (eSCM-SP) and eSourcingCapability model for Client Organiza-tions (eSCM-CL) as a foundation forimproving both service provider andclient (business) capabilities. Thiswas a great introduction to Bill as afirst time speaker to our conferenceand the feedback confirms that we areready to hear about new topics thatstimulate the mind and give us that, as one attendee said, “out-of-the-box”presentation that exposes us to newthings; or as stated by another mem-ber of the audience, the informationwas “useful and relevant.”

Thursday evening provided anevening of monumentally proportionedintrigue – ISMA3 participants weretreated to a visit to the InternationalSpy Museum followed by a bus tour ofWashington, DC monuments. The SpyMuseum, “which is really a cover,”enables visitors to become versant inespionage by taking on a persona andnavigating through checkpoints to testtheir skills. ISMA3 folks tested differ-ent listening devices (AKA “bugs”),learned how to line up pins to picklocks, and climbed through air ventsto spy on fellow attendees. The muse-um also provides insight into the role of intelligence in various worldevents. After the whirlwind, on-the-edge activities supplied by the SpyMuseum, participants enjoyed cock-tails, heavy hors d’oeuvres, sliders anda to-die-for pasta cooking station. Thenight was capped off with a bus tourof various Washington DC sights onthe Mall including the WashingtonMonument, the Jefferson Memorialand several Smithsonian Museums.The buses stopped at the Lincoln

Memorial, allowing participants towalk along the Korean Memorial, the Reflecting Pool and the VietnamMemorial.

Back to reality on Friday, theExecutive Management Track washosted, in which Michael Harris dis-cussed “Measuring the Business Valueof IT,” framing business expectationsfrom IT and how to measure IT per-formance. Rob Donnellan followed upwith “Hammer’s PEMM for CMMI,”providing an overall background ofthe PEMM framework – development,application to CMMI process imple-mentations, and how this has beenused by varying companies.

Friday’s Function Point Track pres-entation was “Counting Facebook,”presented by IFPUG President TomCagley, it discussed approaches toapplying function point analysis tosocial networking sites. Challengesinclude defining the applicationboundary and determining what types of users there are.

The Metrics Track wrapped up onFriday with two presentations. PamMorris provided a “Case Study of aSuccessful Measurement Programas a Key Input into Improving the

Development Process” reviewing theimplementation of a measurementprogram in a large government organi-zation. The last, and in case you werewondering, well attended presentationwas from Lori Holmes’ “BaselineStudies: The Myths, The Methods,The Magic” instructing attendees on how to utilize baseline studieseffectively. Highlights of Lori’s presentation included defining thepurpose of the study, examples ofanalysis and reporting and how to use the information.

If you are interested in receiving a CD of the conference proceedings,please contact the IFPUG Office,609/799-4900.

See you in Chicago, Illinois inSeptember 2009 for the 4th AnnualISMA Conference and Fall Workshops.Check IFPUG’s website – www.ifpug.org– often. The Call for Participation for next year’s conference will bethere soon.

Conference Committee, continued from page 6

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 88

Committee ReportsEducation CommitteeBy Bill Hufschmidt, Chair

In Arlington, we offered several NEW courses supporting the CSMS certification plus a number of encore courses:• FP101 Introduction to FP Counting with Lori Holmes,• FP225 Building an ILF Model for Estimating FP with Dr. Charley Tichenor, NEW• FP300 Count What with Steve Woodward and Tammy Preuss, NEW• FP301 CFPS Exam Prep with Sheila Dennis and Steve Keim,• QI235 Established a CMMI® with Steve Lett, NEW• MS110 Goal-Question-Metric Workshop with Carol Dekkers, NEW• MS250 Metrics to Survive Changing Management/Administrations with Bill Hufschmidt,• MS230 Measurement Workshop Using FP with Doug Brindley, • PM315 Lean Six Sigma with Rick Hefner, NEW• MS211 Software Metrics Definition, Analysis & Reporting with Sherry Ferrell,• MS222 Principles of Estimating & Benchmarking with Dan Bradley and Christine Green,• MS500 CSMS Help Session with Heidi Malkiewicz and the Management Reporting Committee.

Thanks to the Education Committee and Pam Simonovich, the Past Chair.If you missed it, you missed some great offerings by excellent instructors. Education is excited to continue expansion

of training offerings to allow members and non-members more chances to take important classes. Look for some newcourses and alternate forums over the next year.

We are also looking for input from YOU on the type of courses that would enhance your measurement and analysiscapabilities. Are your organizations interested in counting classes or applying measurements? We want to help.

If you have suggestions please forward them to the IFPUG Office, care of Christopher Decker, cdecker@cmasolutions.com.

Certification CommitteeBy Gregory Allen and Melinda Ayers

Automated CFPS Exam UpdateIFPUG’s testing service provider,

Prometric, attended ISMA 2007 withbooth and joint presentation withCertification Committee. The contractfor automating the CFPS exam wasfully executed October 2, 2007. Andthen the real work began…

Design and DevelopDesign of the automated exam

began during ISMA 2007. Design considerations included content and format, parameters for randomquestion selection, and referencematerials. Content development beganin October 2007 and was completedfor delivery to our testing servicesprovider, Prometric, on March 31,2008. Over 200 new questions weredeveloped specifically for the auto-mated exam.

Code, Publish and ReviewThree code, publish and review

cycles were conducted from April

through June. There was one majordesign change after first review. Everyquestion for the exam was reviewedand tested during each of the threereview cycles.

Pilot The exam was piloted from June 30

through July 11. Several of IFPUG’scurrent CFPS agreed to put the examthrough its paces. The pilot resultswere very encouraging:• Pass rate: 80%• Timing: “minutes to spare” averaged

15, with a high of 26 minutes and alow of 9 minutesIn addition to taking the exam, the

participants also went through theexam registration process to help iden-tify potential issues before the exam“go live” date.

The pilot participants completed asurvey to help us identify improve-ments to the exam processes. As aresult of the feedback that we receivedfrom the pilot surveys the followingactions were taken:• Merged the Helpful Hints and the

Exam Day Rules into one documentand made updates to clarify andenhance the hints

• Provided input to Prometric toimprove their processes

• Saved input for future exam revisions

TO EACH AND EVERY PILOT PARTICIPANT – THANK YOU!

GO LIVEThe English automated exam went

live July 14; registration was openedto all IFPUG Members. There arechanges to the process of taking theautomated exam as compared to themanual exams. You are no longer lim-ited to taking the exam at predeter-mined times and locations. You arenow free to schedule the exam whenyou are ready and at a location that isconvenient for you.

Additional LanguagesWe are currently in the process

of translating the CFPS Exam intoBrasilian Portuguese and Italian. The exam has been translated byPrometric and is being reviewed byCFPS. The Brasilian Portuguese examis scheduled to “go live” in October2008, while the Italian exam is sched-uled for November 2008. Additionaltranslations will be planned based onbusiness case and projected volume.

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 9

Committee ReportsIT Performance CommitteeBy Dan Bradley, Chair

“The IT Performance Committee’s goal is to provide services, based on a collection of software metrics data thatassist IFPUG members to understand,plan, manage, and improve software engineering processes and practices.”

Another fantastic ISMA has come andgone. The ITPC met in Washington forthree days prior to the conference, andwe really accomplished a lot. Here’s thebig news:

Christine Green and Dan Bradley ledthe ITPC created workshop, MS-222“Principles of Estimating and Bench-marking Using Industry Data.” The workshop was very well received andwell attended.

New ideas coming from the committeeinclude:

Beginning an aggressive marketingcampaign for ISBSG products. Remem-ber that as an IFPUG member you canbuy these products at a reduced price.By doing this, you not only get the discount and gain access to an excellentand inexpensive benchmark repository, continued on page 10

but you also help offset the cost ofIFPUG’s membership in this world-wideeffort.

Initiate a research project in conjunc-tion with a Danish university to expandthe understanding of the data in theISBSG repository including factorsinfluencing development productivity.

The committee spent a great deal of time finalizing the Framework forTechnical Sizing. I’ll tell you much moreabout this below.

Breaking News! …IFPUG Boardapproves the proposal for the “TechnicalSize Framework”.

First let me thank everyone involved in this very successful first phase ofIFPUG’s project to address issues surrounding the sizing of technical development requirements currentlynot reflected in functional size.

Now, what happened?Framework was completed by the

team a couple of weeks late, but in time to receive approval at the SeptemberBoard meeting.

The Framework was presented to themembership on Wednesday, September17, 2008.

All indications are that it was enthusiastically received.

Details of the Framework will bemade available on the IFPUG web site shortly.

The Framework includes accommoda-tion for both Technical and Quality criteria; therefore, it is comprehensivefor “Non-functional Size.”

A naming contest was held to create a better name for the Framework than“Non-functional Assessment.” Therewere more than 30 entries, and the winner is…

SNAP, which is an acronym for, if mymemory doesn’t fail me, Software Non-functional Assessment Process. Believeit or not, after an anonymous vote and a landslide decision, the membershipchose a name that was submitted by twomembers of the ITPC, Christine Greenand Sheila Dennis.

The ITPC is currently working on the project charter for the next phase of the SNAP project. This phase willdetail assessment categories and theirassociated evaluation and measure-ment criteria.

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 81 0

Committee Reports

Counting Practices Committeeby Janet Russac and Royce Edwards

The IFPUG Counting PracticesCommittee (CPC) is completing thenext release of the IFPUG CountingPractices Manual (CPM 4.3), plannedfor release in 3rd Quarter 2009. Therevisions for CPM 4.3 result primarilyfrom the creation of the new versionof the IFPUG ISO Functional SizeMeasurement (FSM) Method.

CPM 4.3 continues to be a multi-part document, structured similarly toCPM 4.2.1. IFPUG’s ISO FSM becomesPart 1 of CPM 4.3 and is replacingCPM 4.2.1 Part 1 – Process and Rules.The remainder of the existing CPM(CPM 4.2.1) has been revised to alignwith the wording of the IFPUG FSM(i.e., CPM 4.3 – Part 1) and will beidentified as the ImplementationGuide. CPM 4.3 will be a single, bounddocument consisting of both sections.The IFPUG CFPS exam, once updatedfor the new release, will be basedupon CPM 4.3 in its entirety (i.e.,IFPUG FSM + Implementation Guide).

The following diagram illustratesthe relationship of the 4.2.1 CPM tothe new 4.3 FSM and ImplementationGuide (CPM 4.3)

High-Level Tasks/StatusThe bullets below provide a high-

level list of the CPC tasks and currentstatus of each:• IFPUG FSM – Created; reviewed

internally; reviewed externally by 14 reviewers including ISO experts,individual IFPUG Committee mem-bers, vendors and corporate repre-sentatives – Completed – 2007

• IFPUG FSM – Approved by IFPUGBoard – March 2008

• IFPUG FSM – Submitted to ISO forreview – In Process

• IFPUG FSM – Incorporate feedbackfrom ISO – 1st QTR 2009

• CPM 4.3 – Implementation Guide –Created/Revised; Reviewed internal-ly; Reviewed externally

• CPM 4.3 – Implementation Guide –Incorporated feedback from reviewers

• CPM 4.3 (IFPUG FSM + Impl Guide) –Commence Impact Study – 4th QTR2008

• CPM 4.3 (IFPUG FSM + Impl Guide) –Publish – 3rd QTR 2009

Interested individuals are stronglyencouraged to participate in the ImpactStudy. The CPC will be sending periodicemails which will explain both theprocess of participating and the overallstatus of the Impact Study.

For additional information on CPM4.3, please refer to the CPC’s presenta-tion during the 2008 ISMA Conferenceon the IFPUG web-site (Link-> 2008ISMA Conference - CPC Presentation).

Committee Reports, continued from page 9

Management Reporting Committee By Heidi Malkiewicz, Chair

The Management ReportingCommittee members have had a veryeventful past year. The majority of theCommittee’s job has been enhancingthe Certified Software MeasurementSpecialist program.

The Certified Software MeasurementSpecialist program has seen manychanges in the past year. First, theCommittee transitioned the body ofknowledge for the exam from theGuidelines to Software Measurementto a new body of knowledge thatencompasses many industry respected

sources and topics such as Six Sigmaand the Balanced Scorecard. Toaccompany the new body of knowl-edge, the Management ReportingCommittee created a new exam basedon the new content. There is a samplepractice exam now available as a freedownload on the IFPUG website.

Another major change to theCertified Software MeasurementSpecialist (CSMS) program is that one can become a Certified SoftwareMeasurement Specialist by only takingthe exam – no packet required. Thereare three levels to the CSMS. The first level requires passing the exam.The second and third levels require

passing the exam and obtaining a certain level of credits in the softwaremeasurement field. These credits aredetermined through the certificationpacket process. Details of the packetprocess can be found on the IFPUGwebsite.

To assist people with the packetprocess the Management ReportingCommittee held a “CSMS Packet HelpSession” at the ISMA conference inArlington, Virginia, USA this pastSeptember. The session started withan overview of the packet process andwas followed with individual help onpackets. Those attending received thepractice CSMS exam and answers.

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 1 1

Committee ReportsMembership CommitteeBy Michael Harris, Chair

In the last MetricViews, I reportedthat your new Membership Committeewas up and running with our first twomembers, Agnes Nanu and myselfbased in the USA, and our BoardDirector, Márcio Silveira, based in Brazil. Since then, we have been delighted to welcome M.A.Parthasarathy (who generously asked us to call him “Partha”) basedin Bangalore, and Cao Ji, based inBeijing, to the Membership Committee.Their contributions to, and differentperspectives on, our work have beenhelpful and enlightening.

Under the Board’s direction, wehave been working on a number ofinvestigations and proposals which Iwould characterize as “member valueinitiatives.” As part of this process, we report back to the Board regularlywith our findings, suggestions andrecommendations and the Boardapproves the next steps with excellent

suggestions for improvements or redirects our focus. The first initiativewe hope will emerge as a visible signof our efforts will be a MembershipSurvey that we hope to send out either later this year or early nextyear. When you see the survey, weencourage you to participate and take full advantage of this opportunityto tell IFPUG how you think we aredoing and what you think we shouldbe doing. If you have something press-ing that you think the MembershipCommittee might be able to address,don’t wait for the survey – pleasewrite to me at m.harris@davidconsultinggroup.com.

You can also help us in another way.You can see that we are striving to bethe most internationally representativeof all the IFPUG committees. I mustthank Partha and Cao Ji in particularfor being so flexible about meetingtimes! Although Agnes grew up inRomania and my move to the US from the UK was only 13 years ago,we are actively seeking to expand the

committee membership with membersfrom Europe. Please contact me at theaddress above if you are interested.

ISO (International Organization forStandardization) Committee By Carol Dekkers, Vice Chair

IFPUG continues to be representedin ISO standardization efforts throughtwo avenues:

1. as a corporate member of theU.S. delegation to ISO… SC7;and,

2. as a Category “C” liaison to one or more working groupswithin SC7.

Carol Dekkers attended the Berlinplenary in May 2008, and will alsoattend the Nanning, China interimmeeting in November 2008 to repre-sent IFPUG.

The following list outlines the current ISO highlights as they pertain to IFPUG interests:

continued on page 12

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 81 2

Committee Reports

industry.) It is anticipated thatCarol Dekkers will chair theIFPUG PAS ballot comment resolution meeting (if required) at the India plenary in May 2009.

c. The FiSMA 1.1 (Finnish SoftwareMeasurement Association 1.1)FSM method has been fullyresolved as far as dissenting/revision comments are concernedand will soon be published as the5th FSM method to become anISO standard (ISO/IEC 29881).The comment resolution meetingwas chaired at the Berlin plenaryin May 2008 by John Phippen,who deftly facilitated a consensusposition on the standard.

2. New project – IT ProjectBenchmarking Standard (ISO/IEC 29155):

IFPUG is involved in a newly initiatedproject to produce a suite of standardson IT Project Benchmarking. CarolDekkers is an ISO project co-editorfor 29155, and Dan Bradley’s ITPerformance Committee is heavilyinvolved in reviews and comment formulation. The standard will bedeveloped by a WG10 (Working Group 10: Process Assessment standards) subgroup for IT ProjectBenchmarking. The rest of the IFPUGISO Committee are reviewing the current proposed program of work forthis emerging new (set of) standards.This standard will be discussed and a working draft developed and a preliminary committee draft for thenew project (ISO/IEC 29155) will beformulated at the Nanning, Chinameeting in November 2008.

For further information about theemerging ISO IFPUG standards work,contact Carol Dekkers by email atdekkers@qualityplustech.com.

Primer and Legend of Acronyms and Abbreviations for the IFPUG

ISO Committee Report

FSM Functional Size MeasurementIEC International Electrotechnical

CommissionISO International Organization for

Standardization (headquartered inGeneva, Switzerland)

JTC1 Joint Technical Committee 1:Information Engineering (“Joint”committee of ISO and IEC)

PAS Publicly Available Specification. A stan-dard in widespread international usageoutside of ISO. The IFPUG ISO standard(ISO/IEC 20926:2003 IFPUG 4.1 unad-justed) became an ISO standard usingthe PAS procedure which is differentthan developing a standard “fromscratch” (i.e., written and created)within the ISO standards process

SC7 Subcommittee 7: Software andSystems Engineering (with membersrepresenting approximately 30“Primary” member countries that each carry one vote on ISO ballots,and approximately 20 “Observing”member countries that are non-voting.)

WG Working Group. A working group isresponsible for an ISO “project” thatwill lead to the publication of one ormore international standards.

14143 Refers to the suite of ISO standardsand technical reports under the now-completed project ISO/IEC 14143. Working group 12 (WG12)which performed this project disbandedon completion of the scope of work in2007. Future standards work pertain-ing to functional size measurement willbe handled by a subgroup assigned toWorking Group 6 (Quality Measurementstandards).

1. Functional Size MeasurementStandards:

The subgroup working on the maintenance of Functional SizeMeasurement standards was established within Working Group 6(Quality Measurement standards)when Working Group 12 disbanded on the completion of the 14143 project. (Recall that the project to which IFPUG was an integral participant since 1994 produced asuite of six documents: 3 ISO stan-dards, and 3 Technical Reports.)

While the Working Group 6 (WG6)met in Japan in October, the subgroupwork underway currently did notrequire in person IFPUG representation.Here is the current FSM subgroupschedule of work:

a. The new COSMIC work item for revision will commence as aworking draft and start in Japan;however, such documentationwill be circulated in SC7 and thendiscussed in India in May 2009.

b. The IFPUG PAS (IFPUG Release2009) is currently undergoing asix month ballot which will closein late December 2008. Becausethe ballot will not be finished bythe time of the Japan meeting, it will not be discussed there.Thank you to the IFPUG CPC forall of the hard work to preparethis version of the new IFPUGFSM method for submission toISO. This new standard willreplace the current ISO/IEC20926:2003 IFPUG 4.1 unadjustedFunctional Size MeasurementMethod. (All published ISO standards require review andpotential revision every five yearsto ensure that they retain theircurrency with the state of the

Upcoming Software Measurement Industry EventsNDIA 8th Annual CMMI® TechnologyConference and User GroupNovember 17-20, 2008Denver, Coloradohttp://www.ndia.org

SEPG 2009March 23-26, 2009San Jose, Californiahttp://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/

Committee Reports, continued from page 11

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 1 3

Committee Reports

Multiple Media Study Group By Steve Keim

The Multiple Media Study Group(MMSG) presented its results at the2008 ISMA Conference. The studygroup consisted of Mary Bradley ofMSB2 who chaired the group and isthe Board liaison for the countingstandards committees, Bill Ravensbergof London Life Insurance Company,Chris Kohnz of Nestle Purina, RobynLawrie of Charismatek, MartinD’Souza of the New Zealand Ministryof Transport, and Steve Keim of David Consulting Group.

At the 2006 ISMA Board meeting, a motion was put from the floor tofreeze the direction of a white paperput forth by the Counting PracticesCommittee (CPC). A follow-on votewas instituted on the proposal: “Tofreeze the current direction of multiplemedia counting rules. A new surveyshould be conducted by an independ-ent party to fully discover IFPUGmembership multiple media common

practices. This survey should alsosolicit proposed solutions from theIFPUG membership. The final deci-sion on the multiple media countingrules should be based on the results of this survey.” This was the basis forthe study group.

We had a total of 171 responses,constituting 16.8% of the certifiedcounters. While this number seemslow compared to a 100% responserate, it does constitute a return rate of close to double what would beexpected for this type of survey. Thedistribution of respondents is in thepresentation which is available withthe full survey questions and resultson the IFPUG web site. The surveyclearly demonstrated that CertifiedFunction Point Specialists are inter-preting the rules in the CountingPractices Manual substantially differently when multiple media areinvolved. While some interpretationspresent an almost 50-50 split, somehave more than two interpretations –and even within different interpreta-

tions, the comments provided intro-duce more variations.

Because the survey was limited toCertified Function Point Specialists,all who responded were experts in thefield so there were no wrong answers– just their interpretations of the rulesapplied to particular scenarios.

The findings were presented to theIFPUG Board, with the result that theyappointed a team consisting of twomembers of the CPC, two members ofthe NEC, two members of the ITPC,and two members of the MultipleMedia Study Group to come up with a definitive direction for counting multiple media situations with theremaining four members of the MMSGacting as facilitators and coordinators.The team has two months to come upwith a plan for the solution (not theend solution itself). The solution willconsider the survey results. Other thanthat, the team was left to determinewhat the solution for counting multi-ple media will be.

New Environments CommitteeBy Steve Woodward, Chair

The New Environments Committee(NEC) had a busy and successful time at the ISMA conference inWashington, DC in September 2008.We worked on several papers, whichwe hope to get distributed by or during the winter. These includeAccounting for Reuse, Middleware,Component Based Development,Measurable Software Architectures(UML/ OMG), and WEB. Other papersbeing developed include InteractiveVoice Response (IVR) and applicationboundaries. The NEC and CountingPractices Committee will work togeth-er to get these papers into the handsof our membership as soon as possible.

We communicated to the IFPUGboard of directors and to the member-

ship that the NEC wants to expandthe attractiveness of the IFPUGfunctional sizing method as much as possible. To facilitate this, morepapers dealing with new technologyand development strategies will bewritten.

The NEC also offered the class FP-300 “Count What?” which wasreceived positively. In this class, wediscussed various scenarios andcounting situations such as a videogames development organization con-tracting with a third party to get theirgame HD TV capable; a grocery storeself-service check-out; a defibrillatordevice; and a power plug adaptermeeting various international stan-dards. The scenarios demonstratedthat IFPUG rules can be applied tovarious non-traditional scenarios and

situations. Early understanding andidentification for the purpose andobjectives are critical to ensure mean-ingful information and analysis can beprovided to your stakeholders.

The NEC will also be a contributorto the Multiple Media study group inthe resolution phase of this importantissue at IFPUG.

The NEC looks forward to a busy2008/ 09. We will continue to demon-strate that the IFPUG FunctionalSizing Method can be applied to alldomains of software and is a benefi-cial method to generally identify andcategorize functionality.

We welcome your ideas and partici-pation as reviewers and/ or subjectmatter experts.

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 81 4

What’s Your (Function Point)?

Question submitted by Ashwini Mujumdar

August 29, 2008

I am going to write the CFPS examon Monday and urgently need to knowthe current standing of IFPUG CPC onthe following 2 issues: 1. Help : How is help function counted

if the Help file is hard coded and notmaintained by the application.

2. If the same report with derived datais viewed online and can be printedusing a Print option from the Menu,how many EOs are counted?

Response provided by SteveNeuendorf

August 29, 2008

1. “Hard Coded” is not really a userterm. Your application developer may say the help is hard coded, when really it is an ILF in anotherapplication. If not an ILF in anotherapplication, count nothing. If it is,count an EIF referenced by a helpEQ. General practice (and confirm ifit is still a hint) would be to count anEQ each for field or context sensitivehelp and for general help.

2. I would only count 1. The print is notunique.

Follow-up by Ashwini Mujumdar

August 31, 2008

Thanks for your reply. To confirmand clarify, nothing is counted if Help is hard coded. If it is a maintained file(internal / external) then both the datafunction (ILF / EIF) and the transac-tion (EQ) are counted. One EQ eachfor field, screen and window levelhelp are counted. Multiple media(online /print) is not counted as 2transactions.

Response provided by GuilhermeSiqueira Simões

August 31, 2008

CPM 4.2.1 brings an example onpart 3, page 1-38, showing how tocount a Help facility provided by aseparate application, for a HR applica-tion.

Its stated user requirements are: The user requires the Help system

to provide: 1. The facility for a user to describe

how each window is used toaccomplish each business functionavailable on the window.

2. The ability to change window help.3. The ability to set up a definition,

default values, and valid values foreach field in the Human Resourcesapplication.

4. The ability to change field help. 5. The ability for the Human

Resources application to retrieve window and field help for display.

What’s Your (Function) Point?Counting Help and Multiple Media

And concludes that “Field helpinformation is an EIF in the HR appli-cation because the information isretrieved by the HR application. Thefield help information is maintained inthe Help system where it is counted asan ILF.”, with the following fields: • Window identifier • Field identifier • Field description • Default values • Valid values

But I think that does not make sensesince Help file is code data and helpfacility is not a functional user require-ment for HR application.

Could someone clarify this doubt?

Clarification provided by E. Jay Fischer, CPC

August 31, 2008

Guilherme, unfortunately the example for Help in the current CPM (4.2.1) does not address codedata. However, CPM 4.3 will addressthat explicitly with the followingexplanation in the rule box for theHelp Example in the Data Functionsection of the Implementation Guide:“Window Help and Field Help consistof more than just code and descriptionattributes, are not used for substitutionand store data to support core useractivity; consequently, they are notconsidered code data.”

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 1 5

IFPUG Board of Directors

IFPUG Board of DirectorsTom Cagley; PresidentDavid Consulting Grouptcagley@davidconsultinggroup.com

Bruce Rogora; Vice President Pershing, Inc.brogora@pershing.com

Chris Kohnz; SecretaryNestle Purina Petcareckohnz@purina.com

Mary Dale; TreasurerQ/P Management Groupmary.dale@qpmg.com

Mauricio Aguiar; Immediate Past PresidentTI Métricas mauricio@metricas.com.br

Mary BradleyCounting Standards MSB2msb2@compuserve.com

Loredana FrallicciardiApplied ProgramsCSC Italialoredana.frallicciardi@csc.com

Joe SchofieldEducation & Conference ServicesSandia National Labsjrschof@sandia.gov

Márcio SilveiraInternational & Organizational AffairsEDSmarcio.silveira@eds.com

Committee Rosters

Certification Committee• Kriste Lawrence, EDS – Chair • Melinda Ayers, Geico – Vice Chair • Greg Allen, Pershing • Mahesh Ananthakrishnan, MphasiS• Loredana Frallicciardi, CSC Italia • Nicoletta Lucchetti, Sogei • Jim McCauley, BWXT Y-12 L.L.C. • Michael Ryan, Bank of Montreal

Communications and MarketingCommittee• Frank Molinari – Chair• Linda Hughes, Accenture –

Vice Chair • Ian Brown, Booz Allen Hamilton • Koni Thompson Houston, David

Consulting Group • Janet Russac, Software

Measurement Expertise, Inc.

Conference Committee• Deborah Harris, Q//P Management

Group – Chair • Leah Upshaw, OPS Consulting –

Vice Chair • Daniel French, GEICO• Terry Vogt, Booz Allen Hamilton

Counting Practices Committee• Adri Timp, Equens – Chair • Bonnie Brown, EDS – Vice Chair• Martin D’Souza, Ministry of

Transport, New Zealand • Jay Fischer, JRF Consulting, Inc.• David Garmus, David Consulting

Group• Valerie Marthaler, David Consulting

Group• Janet Russac, Software

Measurement Expertise• Peter Thomas, Steria

Education Committee• Bill Hufschmidt, Development

Support Center – Chair • Stephen Chizar, NAVSISA –

Vice Chair • Barbara Beech, AT&T • Joann Heck, SRA International• Peter Thomas, IBM

ISO Committee• Frank Mazzucco, Compass America

– Chair • Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus

Technologies – Vice Chair • Mary Bradley, MSB2

IT Performance Committee• Dan Bradley, MSB2 – Chair• Christine Green – Vice Chair • Talmon Ben-Cnaan, AMDOCS• Wendy Bloomfield, Great West Life

Assurance • Sheila Dennis, David Consulting

Group

Management ReportingCommittee• Heidi Malkiewicz, Accenture –

Chair • Betsy Clark, Software Metrics, Inc.

– Vice Chair • Pierre Almen, Compass Consulting

AB• Dawn Coley, EDS• Al Hoefer, CSC• John Pruitt, Accenture

Membership Committee• Mike Harris, David Consulting

Group – Chair • Ji Cao, Beijing Suiji Tech • Agnes Nanu, Booz Allen Hamilton • MA Parthasarathy, Infosys

Technologies

New Environments Committee• Steve Woodward, Q/P Management

Group – Chair• Tammy Preuss , Cingular – Vice

Chair • Dawn Coley, EDS • Dan French, Geico• Debbie Maschino, Q/P Management

Group• Charles Wesolowski, QinetiQ North

America

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 81 6

Feature Story

Function Point Counting PatternsRaymond E Boehm andRoyce A Edwards, Software Composition Technologies

Abstract - Patterns address recurringproblems that occur within a profes-sion. The paper introduces patternsand pattern languages. Some patternsthat were developed for the softwaredevelopment community can be usedby function point counters to under-stand applications and generate con-sistent counts. These include MartinFowler's analysis patterns; design patterns developed by Erich Gamma,Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson andJohn Vlissides; and Ian Graham’s WebUsability (WU) pattern language. Thepaper shows where other patterns canbe found. It discusses how the func-tion point community might developits own patterns.

IntroductionPatterns address recurring prob-

lems that occur within a profession.Architects continually have to planthe best layout for rooms in a house.Software developers must find waysto ascertain device status withoutdegrading performance. Functionpoint counters must decide whetherflows of information from one appli-cation to another are best modeled asEIFs or as EIs. Patterns and patternlanguages have been published to helpdesigners in the first two disciplinesquickly understand the forces thatmust be considered and then developworkable designs.

Many of the pattern languagesthat were developed for the software

development community can be usedby function point counters as a basisfor understanding applications andgenerating consistent counts. Theseinclude Martin Fowler's analysis pat-terns; design patterns developed byErich Gamma and Richard Helm,Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides;and other pattern languages that areuseful for understanding applicationsin various domains. Ian Graham’s WebUsability (WU) pattern language is an example of another useful patternlanguage. These patterns can serve

as a springboard to doing fast andconsistent function point counts. Thispaper shows where other patterns,even those that may emerge in thefuture, can be found.

There is an opportunity for the function point community to developfunction point counting patterns thatit could use. This could be done for anorganization or for the profession as awhole. This paper discusses how thismight come about and that the endresult might look like.

Function Point Counting ProblemsFunction point counting is not par-

ticularly easy. Counters are plaguedby a plethora of technical, logisticaland political problems on each count.This paper will not address most ofthem. Instead, it will discuss the func-tion point counters’ need for speed.The counter must quickly understandan application’s requirements andimplementation well enough to countit. This is no small feat. Applicationsthat may have required months ofanalysis time for requirements analy-sis routinely need to be counted inless than one week.

The function point counters’ needfor speed typically manifests itself inthree areas:1. There are times when domain

knowledge must be quicklyacquired. This is particularly thecase when an application’s docu-mentation is missing any usableclass or data models.

2. There are times when knowledge of the delivery environment mustbe quickly acquired. For example,when web applications firstappeared, counters we ill preparedto understand them well enough to generate acceptable counts in a reasonable time.

3. Like any professionals, functionpoint counters need to documentthe best ways to go about perform-ing their jobs. According to themanual itself, “reading the [IFPUGFunction Point] Counting PracticesManual alone is not sufficient train-ing to apply function point countingat the optimum level.”[1] Some

books and training courses exist,but there is no definitive source ofbest practices.

Patterns and Pattern LanguagesThe definition of patterns and

pattern languages is everywhere and nowhere. Except for the IFPUGCounting Practices Manual, everybook referenced by this paper has a section defining these terms.However, many practitioners claimthat there is some mystical propertyor hidden truth that makes all of thesedefinitions inadequate.

Function point counters are alreadyinvolved in enough holy wars regard-ing metrics. There is no need to getinvolved in a “nature of patterns”debate. The material presented here isonly intended to be sufficient to usepatterns. Those seeking true patternsenlightenment must search elsewhere.

An architect named ChristopherAlexander is usually considered to be the inspiration for the softwarepatterns community. He publishedarchitecture textbooks that used patterns for architectural design in the seventies. In the nineties, peoplestarted to write software related pat-terns. It should be mentioned thatsome people feel that patterns wereused by anthropologists even beforethey were popularized by Alexander.

One of the early software patternwriters was James O. Coplien, then ofBell Laboratories. He and Alexanderagreed on the following definition for a pattern: “each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relationbetween a certain context, a problem,and a solution.”[2]

The above definition seems to implythat patterns are simply a literaryform or format for writing proce-dures. However, Coplien indicatesthey are more. They are intended tocapture obscure, but important prac-tices. For example, a pattern mightdescribe the identification of functionpoint transactions from use cases.They also capture hidden structureand relationships. An example of thismight be patterns that exploit somerelationships between transactions

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 1 7

Feature Storyand the Record Element Types of anInternal Logical File.

Again, there are various definitionsof what makes up a pattern language.For the purposes of this paper, it issimply a collection of related patterns.For the patterns to be related, thesolutions of some of the patterns must establish the context for others.

Using PatternsMany of the patterns that were

developed for the software develop-ment community can be used as abasis for understanding applicationsand generating consistent counts.Analysis patterns often help under-stand the domain of the applicationsto be counted. Design patterns may be helpful in recognizing some of themore technical aspects of the applica-tion that must be counted. There areother patterns that do not fit into oneof these categories, but are usefulnonetheless.

Analysis PatternsSeveral collections of analysis

patterns have been published.Analysis patterns concentrate on communicating domain knowledge.One of the best known collectionswas written by Martin Fowler in1997.[3] It contains patterns that dealwith corporate finance, inventory,accounting, planning, trading andhealth care.

In this book, the Contract pattern ispart of the Trading pattern language.It describes the nature of the financialdeals involved in buying and sellingfinancial instruments, such as stocksand bonds. It includes several objectmodels, including the one illustratedbelow. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Simple Model for a Contract

In the perfect world, noneof this would be needed bythe function point counter.There would be conceptualdata models available to iden-tify the logical files (ILFs andEIFs) of the application. Thecounter would not even needto learn very much about theproblem domain.

Unfortunately, it is verycommon to have to perform a count on an applicationwhere the only data relateddocumentation available isthe database schema. In thiscase, the analysis patternscan be used to help separate the main tables from the subsidiary ones.The subsidiary tables are usually forassociative relationships and the like.They are typically counted as RecordElement Types of the ILF or EIF corresponding to the main table. Thecounter has to become somewhatknowledgeable about the applicationdomain, and the counter must acquirethis knowledge as quickly as possible.

In the worst case, there is no datarelated documentation. The countmay be based on a procedurally ori-ented user guide or on the applicationitself. In any case, the counter mustdig into the domain in order to sur-mise what the structure of the logicalfiles might be. While this will certainlybe time consuming, it will be less time consuming with good analysispatterns to refer to.

Design PatternsIn 1995, Erich Gamma, Richard

Helm, Ralph Johnson and JohnVlissides wrote Design Patterns.[4] Its authors gained acclaim (or notori-

ety) as the “Gang of Four.” Manysoftware developers consider thisto be the introduction of patternsto their community. In fact, accord-ing to Martin Fowler[3], only oneof the four authors were familiarwith the work of ChristopherAlexander.

Façade is a design pattern thatwas introduced by the gang. Itsintent is to “provide a unified

interface to a set of interfaces in asubsystem. Façade defines a higher-level interface that makes the subsystem easier to use.” It is pic-tured above. (Figure 2) It makes theinterface easier to use.

In function point terms, it serves toidentify elementary processes. If allaccess is through a façade, then it isthe façade, and not the subclassesbehind it, that identify the elementaryprocess. This principle is particularlyuseful when counting application pro-gramming interfaces (APIs), but canalso be useful in other areas of theapplication.

Function point counters will probably find design patterns less use-ful than the other patterns presented.The Gang of Four book may representa larger intellectual investment that is warranted. Alan Shalloway andJames R. Trott have written a moreapproachable book that covers manyof the same patterns.[5]

Other Pattern LanguagesThere are hundreds of pattern lan-

guages that do not fit neatly into theanalysis or design category. One is IanGraham’s WU pattern language thataddresses web usability.[6] It discuss-es many aspects of the website devel-opment. It describes the use of manyof the visuals that are used on web-sites, such as the tab-card pictured on the next page.(Figure 3)

Figure 2. The Facade Pattern

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 81 8

Feature Story

Figure 3. Tab-card Layout from WU

When websites began to emerge,function point counters were con-fused as to how to count them. One of the biggest initial stumbling blockswas their lack of understanding ofhow different web pages would work.If they saw a tab-card layout, they did not understand what the designer was trying to accomplish. There wasseldom time to work with the site to understand its functioning. Theycould not translate the page into a setof elementary processes and functionpoint transactions.

Studying a pattern language like WU gives the function point counterinsight into what the designer is tryingto accomplish. From there, elemen-tary processes can be identified andtranslated into transactions. Based onthe above pattern, the counter wouldexpect an elementary process foreach of the vertical tabs. The horizon-tal tabs might contain some embed-ded elementary processes, usuallyEQs, to help accomplish the workflowin question.

Other pattern languages will be useful to certain function point coun-ters. Each will be used in a slightlydifferent fashion. However, the timespent with the pattern languages willpay dividends in time savings andincreased accuracy during the count.

Finding Patterns Finding patterns is still a hit-or-miss

process. There is no major catalog of patterns. The website that seems to come closest in terms of scope and acceptance is http://www.hillside.net/patterns.

The Portland PatternRepository is anotherlist of patterns. It ismaintained by WardCunningham athttp://c2.com/ppr/.Much of it is concernedwith wiki and ExtremeProgramming.

Obviously, check the usual places. Somepattern languages havebeen published in bookform. Checkhttp://www.amazon.com

for these. Or course, checkhttp://www.google.com for a patternlanguage of some type. Use the words“pattern language” along with the typeof patterns being searched for.

Function Point Counting PatternsIf pattern languages are useful for

other software developers, then whatabout for function point counters?Counters have obscure but importantpractices. There are hidden structuresinvolved in the counters’ work. Thefollowing areas might benefit fromappropriate patterns:• When information enters one appli-

cation from another, there is a ques-tion as to whether the information isan EI or an EIF. A pattern wouldexplain the forces and thoughtprocesses involved in making thisdecision.

• A drop down on a screen is usuallyan EQ. However, if the same dropdown appears on several screens itis still a single EQ. Therefore, somepractitioners record the drop downstogether on their worksheets toavoid double counting them.Unfortunately, they have no way of realizing when the last screenhosting that drop down is removedfrom the application. A patternaddressing this would be helpful.

• The Counting Practices Manualgives much of its guidance in termsof structured analysis and design.Patterns that showed how to derivefunction point counts from othertechniques, like use cases, would be beneficial to the industry.

ConclusionsIn a perfect world, function point

counters can quickly count applica-tions based solely on the applicationinformation that is made available tothem. In the real world, existing soft-ware development patterns may helpthem come up to speed on new prob-lem domains and technical environ-ments more quickly. The developmentof function point counting patternswould further increase efficiency andconsistency in the function pointcounting process.

References[1] International Function Point Users

Group (IFPUG) Counting PracticesManual Release 4.2, 2004.

[2] J. O. Coplien, Software Patterns.New York: SIGS Books &Multimedia, 1996.

[3] M. Fowler, Analysis Patterns:Reusable Object Models. Boston:Addison-Wesley, 1997.

[4] E. Gamma, R. Helm, R. Johnson,and J. Vlissides, Design Patterns:Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Reading,Massachusetts: Addison-wesleyPublishing Company, 1995.

[5] A. Shalloway and J. R. Trott,Design Patterns Explained: A NewPerspective on Object-OrientedDesign. Boston: Addison-Wesley,2002.

[6] I. Graham, A Pattern Language forWeb Usability. London: Addison-Wesley, 2003.

About the AuthorsRaymond Boehm isSoftware CompositionTechnologies principalconsultant. He is anIFPUG CFPS, a QAICSQA and a member of the ACM and theIEEE. Contact him at rayboehm@softcomptech.com.

Royce Edwards is a longtime member of IFPUG. Contact him at royce@softcomptech.com.

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 1 9

Vendors‘ World!

Janet Russac, Principal, is an interna-tionally recognized expert in the fieldof FP counting and software measure-ment. Janet has been a CFPS for over13 years and was one of the first to gain the Certified SoftwareMeasurement Specialist (CSMS) designation.

A team of experienced consultantswho offer expertise in FP counting,software measurement, estimation,auditing, training and mentoring joinsJanet. SME also has an array of train-ing courses or we can tailor-make acourse to fit your need. Visit us atwww.SoftwareMeasurementExpertise.com.

Total Metrics Victoria, Australia

Established in Australia in 1994Total Metrics provides software measurement related consulting, training and software to the local and international market.

Total Metrics function point count-ing experts developed SCOPE SizingSoftware™, the first product to bringsoftware functional sizing into thedomain of project governance andsoftware portfolio asset management.Project managers use SCOPE tomodel and quantify their softwareprojects, for input into project esti-mates, productivity assessments andclient scope negotiations. The only FPmeasurement software to provide aquantified audit trail of requirement’schanges and to quantify rework andimports all your old FPW and EXCELcounts.

FP Outline™, Total Metrics latestproduct release, determines theapproximate size of a project or application in minutes rather than the days, or weeks, consumed usingtraditional IFPUG counting methods.Learn how you could use FP Outline™

to save significant time and money inimplementing functional sizing in yourorganization.

important aspects of any improvementinitiative. It must deliver value andthat value must be visible. Evidence-based value modeling is used to testthe potential ROI of individual bestpractices or combinations of bestpractices.

The VVF is a holistic framework.You start from where you are now.Your next step is the one that is mostvaluable to you.

Q/P Management Group, Inc.Massachusetts, USA

Q/P Management Group, Inc. is aleading provider of software measure-ment, benchmarking, quality and productivity consulting services. Weimplement the best, most innovativemethods, techniques and tools avail-able to assess quality and productivity,implement continuous processimprovements and measure the results.

We are proud to announce SoftwareMeasurement and Reporting (SMR),the latest addition to our suite of products and tools. SMR users havethe ability to capture, report and compare project performance againsthistorical or industry benchmark data. Our strategic tool alliance withCharismatek Software Metrics pro-vides a direct link between SMR andCharismatek’s Function Point WORK-BENCH™ giving clients licensed touse both products a fully integrated,seamless measurement and reportingsolution. Q/P has added FunctionPoint WORKBENCH to our productofferings.

Visit our website, www.QPMG.comfor details about our services andproduct offerings.

Software MeasurementExpertise, Inc.Florida, USA

Announcing the formation of thesoftware analysis and measurementworld’s newest company, SoftwareMeasurement Expertise, Inc. (SME).

Charismatek SoftwareMetrics Victoria, Australia

Charismatek Software Metrics willshortly publish Release 7.0 of theFunction Point Workbench. It is now16 years since our first Release andmany of our original clients are stillwith us. The Workbench continues tochange with new IFPUG CPMs and isupgraded as technology moves ahead.Workbench 7.0 is now fully VistaCompatible – and again sets a newstandard in the use of sizing.

Faster! Yes, faster again. More waysto find information quickly – moreways to get counting done quickly and consistently.

Easier! Yes, even easier still – withmore ways of extracting informationfrom Requirements and automaticallysizing those requirements.

Smarter! Innovative and effective in so many ways, the Function PointWorkbench Ver. 7.0 now also hasdirect integration with SMR industrybenchmarking (from Q/P ManagementGroup). New Workbench featuresinclude intelligent approximation siz-ing for early estimates and portfoliobaseline sizing – a fully integratedapproach to sizing and estimating.

David Consulting Group Pennsylvania, USA

Over many years, the process and measurement experts at DavidConsulting Group have studied,taught, implemented and auditedalmost all of the IT improvementmethodologies and best practices thathave come, gone and stayed around.Current examples of these includeFunction Point Analysis, Six Sigma,GQM, CMI and ITIL.

With such a variety of tools avail-able, how can you ensure continuousimprovement, test for effectivenessor, indeed, test for “mission accom-plished?” At DCG, we use our ValueVisualization FrameworkSM (VVF) toidentify and prioritize the two most

Vendors World! Vendors World!

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 82 0

New CFPS

Gregory AllenPershing LLC

Vijay ArcotIBM Global Services

Melinda AyersGEICO

Kee Young BackDaewoo InformationSystems

Sang Ock BaekHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

PranabenduBhattacharyyaTata ConsultancyServices

Ray BoehmSoftware CompositionTechnologies

Bonnie BrownEDS

Bong Joon ChangHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Ricardo ChavezArellanoIBM Global Services

Byung Young CHoiDaewoo InformationSystems

Jae Nyong ChoiLG CNS

Jae Wan ChoiDaewoo InformationSystems

Jong Ho ChoiHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Jong Phil ChoiDaewoo InformationSystems

Gyu Gon ChuDaewoo InformationSystems

Whoi Bin ChungDaewoo InformationSystems

Jeannette CredeNielsen MediaResearch

Mary DaleQ/P ManagementGroup, Inc.

Diana Francisca DeAraujo BaklizkyTI Métricas

Liza Gretel LaraEspinosaIBM Global Services

Loredana FrallicciardiCSC Italia

Daniel FrenchGEICO

Brian GeleNielsen MediaResearch

Alfonso GonzalezMateoUAH

Christine GreenEDS

Dong Ha GwakHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Lee HedinIBM Global Services

Daniel Hoffmann

Hee Kyung HongLG CNS

Seung Yun HongLG CNS

Koni ThompsonHoustonDavid ConsultingGroup

Ashley HurdenMehlem Services LTD

Kyo Shik HwangDaewoo InformationSystems

Satoshi InoueTIS Inc.

Tae Kon JangLG CNS

Kang JeongDaewoo InformationSystems

Woo Cheol JeongHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Gregory Jonesku

Han Kyu JooHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Jae Hyun JooLG CNS

Seung Kyo JungHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Bo Young KangHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Myung Koo KangLG CNS

Steve KeimThe David ConsultingGroup, Inc.

Ahn Na KimHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Dong Ki KimLG CNS

Hun KimDaewoo InformationSystems

Jong Won KimDaewoo InformationSystems

Kyu Min KimLG CNS

Mi Hei KimDaewoo InformationSystemsSung Lae KimDaewoo InformationSystems

Sung Min KimDaewoo InformationSystems

Surn Durk KimLG CNS

Young Jin KimDaewoo InformationSystems

Young Soo KimHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Sang Beom KimNIA

Min Hoe KooLG CNS

Makoto KurashigeHitachi, Ltd.

Sun Myeong KweonHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Dae Hee KwonHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

David LambertDavid ConsultingGroup

William LawBank of Nova Scotia

Kriste LawrenceEDS

Hyang Hoon LeeHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Hyung LeeHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

In Ho LeeLG CNS

Ji Suk LeeLG CNS

Min Sang LeeDaewoo InformationSystems

Nicoletta LucchettiSOGEI

Francisco MaguillaManchadoSopra Profit S.A.U.

Valerie MarthalerThe David ConsultingGroup

Congratulations to these NEW and Extended CertifiedFunction Point Specialists!

I F P U G M e t r i c V i e w s F a l l 2 0 0 8 2 1

New CFPS & CSMSDebra Maschino

James McCauley

Victoria Mervar

Ana Maria MiccolisIBM

Ricardo MolineroJuarezIBM Global Services

Julio Cesar MontoyaMIBM Global Services

Ki Seong MoonHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Ashwini MujumdarComputer SciencesCorporation

Jin Hyun NamLG CNS

Anjum NisarSatyam ComputerServices Ltd

Hye Jung ParkDaewoo InformationSystems

Il Kwon ParkLG CNS

Jae Hyun ParkDaewoo InformationSystems

Jin Bok ParkLG CNS

Jong Beom ParkHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Ki Seoung ParkHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Sang-Ha ParkHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Bruce PaynterBNB Software QualityManagement

Cecilia Perez ColinIBM Global Services

Kelly QvernNielsen MediaResearch

Toni RamosDavid ConsultingGroup

William RavensbergLondon LifeInsurance

Bruce RogoraPershing LLC

Hyun Jin RohDaewoo InformationSystems

Janet RussacSoftwareMeasurementExpertise, Inc.

Michael RyanBank of Montreal

Chang Soo RyuDaewoo InformationSystems

Myung Ki RyuDaewoo InformationSystems

Andrew Sanchez

KalpanaSanthanaramanINAUTIXTechnologies IndiaPvt Ltd

Savitri SarangiSatyam ComputerServices Ltd

Rahul SharmaMPhasis

Won Seok ShimDaewoo InformationSystems

Mi Young ShinDaewoo InformationSystems

Seung Woo ShinDaewoo InformationSystems

Sook Hee SHinDaewoo InformationSystems

Joanna SolesComputer SciencesCorporation

Il Ho SongDaewoo InformationSystems

Oh Joon SungDaewoo InformationSystems

Gary ThompsonEDS

Inmaculada AcunaTorrescusaSadiel, S.A.

Roi VazquezUniversidad Alcala

Seung Won YangHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

In Yeol YeomHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Kyoung Bong YounHanjin InformationSystems &Telecommunication

Shuji ZaitsuHitachi IA

Congratulations to the newest Certified Software Measurement

Specialist (CSMS)!

Pierre FilipowiczTecolote Research

International Function Point Users Group Publications Order Form

MembersNon-

Members Quantity Total

THE FUNCTION POINT STANDARD Counting Practices Manual, Release 4.2

� CD – PDF (English Only)

� Paper

$50

$75

$100

$150

_______

_______

_______

_______

FP231 — CPM 4.2 Update � DVD (English only)

$70 $70 _______ _______

Guidelines for Counting Logical Files� Paper (English Only)

$25 $50 _______ ______

Function Point Quick Reference Card� (Based on CPM 4.1) (Minimum order of 10)

$1 $1 _______ ______

FPA in an Enhancement Environment (A Guide)� Paper (English Only)

$10 $20 _______ ______

Practical Guidelines for Counting Code Data � Paper (English Only)

$10 $20 _______ ______

Practical Guidelines for Counting Shared Data � Paper (English Only)

$10 $20 _______ ______

CASE STUDIES

� Case Study 2: Release 3 (4.2 compliant) New!

� Case Study 4: Release 2 (4.2 compliant) New!

� Case Study 1: Release 3 (4.2 compliant) New!

� Case Study 1: Release 2 (4.1.1 compliant)

� Case Study 2: Release 2 (4.1.1 compliant)

� Case Study 3: Release 2 (4.1.1 compliant)

$50

$50

$50

$45

$45

$45

$75

$75

$75

$75

$75

$75

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

_______

GUIDES TO USING FUNCTION POINTSIT Measurement: Practical Advice from the Experts (2002) Written by leading authorities in the field, this book presents state-of-the-art information about software metrics and their application that practitioners need to take full advantage of software metrics. $50 $55 _______ _______

Guidelines to Software Measurement, Release 2.0

� Diskette – Word for Windows (English and Italian versions)

� Paper (English only) $25

$50

$50

$100

_______

_______

_______

_______

Practical Project Estimation: A Toolkit for Estimating Software Development Effort and Duration 2 nd Edition (February 2005)A 116-page book designed to help with estimating software projects.

$125 $140 _______ _______

IFPUG Office191 Clarksville RoadPrinceton Juntion, NJ 08550USA

First Class MailUS Postage

PAIDPermit No 288Princeton, NJ