Functional size has been favored as a software size attribute that can be measured early in the software development cycles. Its characteristics of being independent of implementation language, technique and technology promoted the use in software cost estimation and other project management practices. It has been about three decades since Albrecht introduced the concept of functional size and a variety of measurement methods have been developed, some of which have been published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Although the concept is recognized in the software community, and there is a growing interest in Functional Size Measurement (FSM), the applications in software organizations have not been common as expected. The problems with FSM method structures and practices have been discussed to be the major factors to explain this situation. This chapter reviews the research papers that propose solutions to the problems with FSM via formalizations in FSM practices or related concept definitions. The associations of the formalization ideas to the abstract software models that represent the view of functionality for FSM methods are of particular interest of the chapter.
Comparative Analysis of Functional Size Measurement Methods on Software Development Projects
