A proposed measurement role in the rational unified process and its implementation with ISO 19761: COSMIC-FFP

ISO 19761 (COSMIC-FFP) defines the standards for measuring the functional size of software and represents the second generation of functional size measurement methods. While there is a large offering of software tools to support the development process, including integrated environments such as RUP, measurement of functional size had until recently been almost exclusively a manual process. This paper presents an approach and a tool for the automation of functional size measurement with RUP. The design of this tool is based on the direct mapping between COSMIC-FFP and UML concepts and notation, a foundation from which the required Rational Rose artifacts can be extracted to proceed to the software project measurement operation. This makes it possible not only to derive the accurate functional size once all specifications have been completed, but also to derive early size indicators when only high-level information is available.