Summary of the 2015 International Function Point User Group Conference (IFPUG) & International Software Measurement & Analysis Conference (ISMA10)

From SNAP to Automated Function Points - Creating Value from Measurement

CAST sponsored the 2015 International Software Measurement & Analysis Conference (ISMA10) held in Charlotte, on April 30^th.  This conference, hosted by the International Function Point User Group (IFPUG), brings software measurement professionals from Europe, North America, and South America to exchange software measurement and function point expertise and to network.  The conference was attended by more than 50 software measurement professional and certified function point counters from across the global.  The full day event featured presentations including:

• Not Your Father’s Function Points – Counting Function Points for Agile/Iterative Software Development - Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies
• Measuring for Other Things Than Just Cost – Christine Green, Hewlett Packard
• Using Project History to Produce Effective Estimates – Dan Horvath, Progressive Insurance
• Integrating SNAP into an Established Function Point Based Estimation and Measurement Program – George Mitwasi, United HealthCare Optimum
• Implications and Opportunities Relevant to Agile Measurement – Joe Schofield
• Function Point Analysis in Integrating the Knowledge Areas of Software Projects - Eduardo Silva
• Early Function Point Analysis and Consistent Cost Estimating – Adri Timp

Enabling Enterprise Productivity Measurement by Combining Manual and Automated Functional Sizing

Barbara Beech, formerly of AT&T, led a review of her previous company’s journey to improve application development team and vendor productivity through more efficient scalable measurement programs that leveraged automated function point counting.  In its current state, this measurement program covers the development and maintenance of over 300 applications supported by multiple application service providers and in-house teams. Yet as functional size metrics found their way into CIO dashboards and were combined with system availability, cost, and budget the initiative evolved to support broader improvement initiatives, performance measurement, IT spending decisions, and vendor relationship management discussions.  Ms. Beech shared the impact on suppliers and in house team to be:

• Greater than 10% improvement in productivity on new enhancement projects;
• Maintenance productivity improved by nearly 10%;
• 30% reduction in defects per function point leading to significant drops in production outages and improved end user satisfaction;
• Reductions in maintenance cost over the life of the program.

Visit www.ifpug.org to learn more about the International Function Point User Group Conference (IFPUG).