This document presents the results of a systematic mapping study on software product size measurement methods. The study identified 79 different size measurement methods, most of which (86%) measure functional size. Only 19% of methods were novel, while the rest extended or tailored existing approaches. The study found that size measurement is most applicable to data-dominant domains, and future work could focus on tailoring methods for object-oriented development and automated measurement tool development.

1. SOFTWARE PRODUCT SIZE
MEASUREMENT METHODS
A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
Sohaib Shahid Bajwa
Cigdem Gencel
Pekka Abrahamsson
Free University of Bozen – Bolzano
Bozen – Bolzano, Italy

2. OUTLINE
• Introduction
• Systematic Mapping Study (SMS)
• Results & Discussion
• Conclusions
• Future Work
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3. INTRODUCTION – 1/2
• Size
• One of the basic attribute of software products
• Why size
• A key input for software effort and cost estimation
• To monitor project achievements
• Normalization of other measures when assessing quality
(e.g. number of defects/SLOC)
• Major entitites (to measure software size)
• Software Requirement Specification (SRS)
• Software Design
• Software Code
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4. INTRODUCTION - 2/2
• Common approaches to software size measurements
• Identify key components of software product
• Measure each using rigorous measurement methods
• Issues related to software size measurement methods
• Immaturity and difficulties in applying methods
• Insufficient empirical/theoretical validation of measures
• Lack of standardization of methods
• During last decades
• New measures and methods were developed
• Improvements were made in exisiting ones
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5. A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
(SMS) – 1/5
 A SMS
Provides an overview of a research area
Reduces the bias of researchers
Well defined criteria to include/exclude primary
studies
Repeatable
 Classification rather than in depth analysis
(Systematic Literature Review)
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6. A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
(SMS) – 2/5
 Research questions
Which software size measures and methods were
developed in software engineering?
What is the current state of the art and trends in
software sizing?
 Search string
(("software size" OR "software product size") AND
("measur*" OR "metric*"))
 Search strategy
Search databases
Limited snowball sampling
Main conference proceedings 6

7. A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
(SMS) - 3/5
 Search databases
Database Name Total
Found
Year
IEEE Xplore Digital Library 613 1977 – 2013
ACM Digital Library 444 1947 – 2014
Springer Link 489 1968 – 2014
Total 1546
Database Name Total Number of
Studies
Total (after inclusion criteria) 691
IEEE Xplore Digital Library 276
ACM Digital Library 241
Springer Link 174
Total (after exclusion criteria) 515
Total (after reading the full texts) 167
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8. A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
(SMS) – 4/5
 Snowball sampling (Studies become from 167 – 185)
 Inclusion from main conference proceedings ( studies
become from 185 – 208)
 Publication channel distributions
Publication types No. of Papers
Journal 65 (31%)
Conference/Workshops 124 (61%)
Book Chapter 10 (5%)
Others 9 (4%)
Total 208
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9. A SYSTEMATIC MAPPING STUDY
(SMS) – 5/5
 Publication distribution per year
Increasing trend after 2008
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10. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION – 1/5
 79 Software product size measure/methods
Software Product Size
Measure/Method
 Functional size classification
Total
Functional Size 68
Physical Size 11
Total 79
Functional Size Classification Total
New/Novel 12
Extended 33
Tailored 23
Total 68
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11. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION – 2/5
 Extended functional size measure/method
Functional Size
Measure/Methods
Total
IFPUG 18
COSMIC 9
Others 6
Total (Extended) 33
 Tailored functional size measure/method
Functional Size
Measure/Methods
Total
COSMIC 13
IFPUG 6
Others 4
Total (Tailored) 23
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12. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION – 3/5
 Number of Functional Sizing Methods with Respect to
Years (New/Extended/Tailored)
 After 2008, most of the methods were either tailored or
extended
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13. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS –
4/5
 Development Methodology
 Object Oriented Development Artifacts (e.g. UML diagrams)
 Validation
 Few theoretically validated
 Mostly empirically validation (either data from industry or
student projects)
 Domain dominant
 Data dominant (83%)
 Data dominant and control dominant (15%)
 Computational domain (2%)
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14. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS –
5/5
 Other aspects of software sizing
 Critical reviews and improvements suggestions based on
theoretical basis
 How to calibrate Function Point Analysis (FPA) method
 Reliability of size measurement
 Convertibility between different size measures
 Tools for automated size measurement
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15. CONCLUSIONS
 Software Product Size Measurement
 Functional Size (86%)
 Physical Size (14%)
 Only 19% are new/novel software sizing methods. Rest
are either tailored or extended
 Promising research areas:
 Tailoring the method for OO methodologies
 Tool development for automated measurement
 Data dominant (83%), Data dominant and control
dominant (15%), Computational domain (2%)
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16. FUTURE WORK
• A comprehensive Systematic Literature Review for in
depth analyses
• Physical size measurement does not have similar level
of acceptancy.
• Only 2% methods are for computational dominant
domain.
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17. THANK YOU!!
Sohaib Shahid Bajwa (bajwa@inf.unibz.it)
Cigdem Gencel (cigdem.gencel@unibz.it)
Pekka Abrahamsson (pekka.abrahamsson@unibz.it)
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