| Author | Message | ||
     Manish Badwe |
Hello, My team is responsible for providing FPA and productivity related services in my organization. Our Product development unit is following Agile/ SCRUM methodology including Story Points which is an Agile estimation technique. Do you know any big organizations which are implementing this combination of Agile and Function Points? I belive IBM, EDS and Microsoft are few of such orgs. Thank you in advance for your attention. Manish Vivek Badwe CFPS, PMP, CSQA | ||
| Patrick Hoornaert |
Agile/Scrum is an approach to deliver a product, whereas Function Point Analysis measures product size, independent of technology or methodology. At Atos Origin Belgium (System Integration) we use Function Points for early macro-estimation + productivity benchmarking, combined with expert estimations. In the "Practical Project Estimation Tookit" published by the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group, and articles such as "The Limitations of Estimation" published by Linda M. Laird (Stevens Institute of Technology) in IT Professional (IEEE Computer Society) Nov.-Dec. 2006, it is recommended to use more then one complementary methodologies. Examples of complementary methods are: - expert opinion with analogy - expert opinion with function points - algorithmic models and use case points - expert opinions by experts with different project experiences and responsibilities - use case points and analogy - etc ... | ||
| Luigi Buglione |
Hi Manish, Patrick is right: you've to remember that FPA (or any other FSM method) is a product size measure (not a project-level one) and takes into account only FUR (Functional User Requirements), not all the product User Requirements (including therefore Non-Functional ones and those related to organizational/support processes to be run within the project and part of the estimation done looking at User Stories). This 2007 paper is about this issue: * http://www.dpo.it/smef2007/papers/day2/212.pdf (a 2007 paper co-written with Prof.Abran) Again, this is a recent presentation from J.Sutherland * http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/Agile2008MoneyforNothing.pdf Best regards, Luigi Buglione ____________________________________________ Luigi Buglione, Ph.D., CSMS Level 3 SEMQ: www.geocities.com/lbu_measure/ MIS 3/e: www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.asp?ID=8054 ____________________________________________ Luigi Buglione, Ph.D., CSMS Level 3 SEMQ: http://www.geocities.com/lbu_measure MIS 3/e: www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.asp?ID=8054 | ||
| Manish Badwe |
Thank you Patrick and Luigi for your expertize. I agree with your opinions very much and thats what we have suggested to our management to implement the Agile Story points for HL estimation and release planning and FP to support low level estimates as well as Productivity Benchmarking. But as you would agree, management is generally interested in knowing about which are the other big companies who are adopting a similar approach.  Do you know companies who have implemented Story points and FP both? Patrick, is the publication you have referred available on web? Thank you again for your guidance! Manish Vivek Badwe CFPS, PMP, CSQA | ||
| Patrick Hoornaert |
Project Estimation Toolkit can be purchased from ISBSG. Synopsis article of Linda M. Laird see http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/fa006 which includes some additional references. |
