Course Objectives | Course Contents |Common Methodology | Trainers Profile

Function Point Analysis (18 PDUs)

August 09, 2008 @ Bangalore, INDIA

Course Objectives

This course has a case-study based hands-on approach. The participants will be familiarized with the Function Point Analysis methodology and its application to projects. Participants will also be introduced to common usages of Function Points in relation to production rates and metrics.

Course Benefits

  • Brings about a standard approach to the estimating process
  • Improves traceability between estimate and project schedule
  • Improves communication with management and user groups
  • Improves project predictability & visibility
  • Helps to manage client expectations
  • Helps to manage IT resources efficiently

Course Contents:

Overview of Function Point approach

  • Basic data collection and analysis
  • Functional sizing of software projects
    • External Inputs
    • External Outputs
    • External Inquiries
    • Internal Logical Files
    • External Interface Files
  • Adjusting Function Points based on system complexity
  • Using industry averages and adjustment factors (includes industry data)
  • Estimating effort, hours, staff, test cases, and defects
  • Organizing and presenting estimates
  • Inputs to Function Points
  • Function Point limitations

Discussion of Case Study

Counting Function Points for the Case Study

  • Breaking down the requirements into units of counting
  • Determining Internal Logical Files for the system
  • Determining External Interface Files for the system
  • Determining transactions (i.e. External Inputs, External Outputs and External Interfaces) for each unit of counting in the system
  • Addressing resuse and optimizing the unadjusted Function Point count
  • Applying system complexity characteristics and deriving adjusted function point count
  • Applying Function Points to determine
    • Overall project effort based on platform / technology used
    • Approximate schedule duration
    • Phase-wise distribution of effort
    • Efforts for test case specification
    • Efforts for defect fixing and rework
    • Staffing requirements
    • Contingency for requirements change through the project

Common Methodology

  1. The courses will be driven by a case study provided by the Trainer
  2. A lot of examples from other domains will be used for explaining concepts
  3. The participants are encouraged to involve themselves in discussions wherein they can get clarification related to their own projects.

Trainers Profile:

Shobha Ramesh has a career spanning 20 years in the IT industry in organizations such as Satyam, SLK Software, Kirloskar Computer Services Ltd and BFL Software Ltd.

She has over 12 years of experience as a Project / Program Manager and has handled projects of sizes ranging from 1 – 100 person-years on UNIX, J2EE, Microsoft, TIBCO and Livelink platforms in various types of client engagement models like offshore model, onsite-offshore model, multi-site / multi-vendor model, staff augmentation model etc.

She has managed large ODCs containing development, maintenance and production-support activities.

As part of her project management activities, she has specialized in product development and in Release & Configuration Management for large projects with multiple teams.

She has managed projects for a wide variety of customers including domestic, US, Japanese, Chinese and Australian customers in the Retail, Automotive, Banking, Manufacturing and Business Performance Measurement domains.

Shobha’s analysis and design skills include OOAD, SSAD, Database Modeling and UML.

Shobha has completed her M.Sc in Mathematics in 1985 from IIT Chennai.

Some of the organizations where Shobha has trained:

  • HCL Shipara Technologies
  • IBM
  • Intellinet
  • Microsoft
  • Misys
  • Satyam Computers