IFPUG Ballot: The Case for Using Media to Identify Unique Elementary Processes

Why You Should Vote YES!

Fellow members of the IFPUG community,

You should recently have received or seen notification of a member-sponsored motion that has been proposed for your consideration and vote.  The motion was originally presented to the IFPUG Board of Directors at the IFPUG Annual Meeting in September in San Diego.

The motion is:

To freeze the current direction of multiple media counting rules.  A new survey should be conducted by an independent party to fully discover IFPUG membership multiple media common practices.  This survey should also solicit proposed solutions from the IFPUG membership.  The final decision on the multiple media counting rules should be based on the results of this survey.

This webpage and its associated links have been compiled by the motion's authors and the supporters of the motion's YES vote.

For further information, please see:

• The 1,000 word position paper for the YES vote;

• The detailed position paper, "IFPUG FPA – The Case For Using Media to Identify Unique Elementary Processes".
  This paper outlines why a YES vote is so important to ensure the current usefulness and the future growth of the IFPUG Function Point Analysis technique.  If you do nothing else, please read section 3. Impact of Interpretation of Media as a “Technical Requirement”.

• The IFPUG Bulletin Board discussion on the Multiple Media topic.

In order to vote on this motion it is necessary to return the official ballot to IFPUG headquarters by mail or fax by Wednesday 29 November 2006.

If you are an IFPUG member and you haven't received an official ballot, please contact IFPUG.

If you know of other IFPUG members or interested parties within your organisation, please distribute the information on this page to them, as the result of this vote will have a significant impact for the entire IFPUG FPA community.

If you have any further queries about the ballot, please don't hesitate to contact any of the supporters of the YES vote mentioned in the column to the right.

These Organisations and Individuals Support the YES Vote:

Organisations

CHARISMATEK Software Metrics

QP Management Group, Inc.

Quantimetrics Pty Ltd

Total Metrics

Individuals

Wendy Bloomfield

Colin Briscoe

David Cleary

Scott Goldfarb

Joann Heck

Roger Heller

Alan Henskie

Lori Holmes

Robyn Lawrie

David Lipton

Binod Maliel

Pam Morris

Paul Radford

Bill Ravensberg

Charley Tichenor

1,000 Word Position Paper for the YES Vote

• Download a printable PDF copy of the 1,000 Word Position Paper for the YES Vote.

Vote YES!

A YES vote assures that Multiple Media rules will be based on appropriate research, analysis and membership input. Your YES vote does not change any rules or reject the Counting Practices Committee’s (CPC) proposal. A YES vote simply gives members the opportunity to provide input so IFPUG can make the right decision. A No vote, however, will endorse a controversial and premature rule change that can have a far reaching impact on Function Point (FP) counting and diminish the global value of the IFPUG standard. The following describes the criticality of the issue and why your YES vote is important.

Background

The key purpose and practical role of Function Point Analysis (FPA) is, and always has been, to quantify software size as a key input to software estimation, productivity measurement and facilitating process improvement.

This central purpose must continue to be the foundation for FPA rule changes and clarifications. If a clarification/change degrades the technique for this and related purposes, then the basis of that clarification/change should be re-visited.

Impact of CPC Proposal on the Benefits of FPA

CPC’s Multiple Media proposal goes far beyond merely eliminating similar reports delivered online versus printed. The CPC proposal can bundle multiple distinct inputs, outputs or enquiries into a single elementary process even when there are obvious distinguishing characteristics.

Under the proposal, a project that develops functionality that allows a user to inquire on bank balance via a Bank Teller, ATM or Interactive Voice Response would receive a SINGLE EXTERNAL INQUIRY even if the THREE LOGICAL REQUIREMENTS were independently identified, documented, coded and tested. What counted as 12 FPs in CPM 4.2 would now be reduced to 4 FPs even though the developers’ effort was 3 times as great as delivering a single inquiry.

Please see the accompanying position paper, IFPUG FPA – The Case For Using Media to Identify Unique Elementary Processes for further examples illustrating the negative impact of the proposal.

The counting solution should be based on what is logical and intuitive from basic counting principles and what is MOST USEFUL FROM A MEASUREMENT AND ESTIMATING PERSPECTIVE.

A YES vote will STOP immediate change and allow us to survey member practices and reasoning in order to establish a workable solution.

Consistency of Counting

The CPC’s number one stated goal for the proposed rule change is counting consistency. Unfortunately the proposed change will lead to greater inconsistency for the following reasons.

• It adds exceptions and complexity to the rules.

  • It contradicts the guiding principles of counting. Unique DETs and processing logic will no longer provide unique functionality.

  • The introduction of “Optional” DETs is a confusing new concept that could be mistakenly applied.

• It changes previously documented rules stated in CPM 3.X as related to inputs, outputs and inquiries. For example:

  • “Input processes, which if specifically requested by the user duplicate a previously counted External Input are each counted (example: ATM and Teller transaction)”

• Multiple Media was historically counted and is still counted by the majority of counters, based on rules that existed and were never formally changed.

  • IFPUG Certified training materials and workshops teach multiple media as being counted when unique DETs and/or processing logic are required

  • Thousands of counters have been trained to count multiple media and many will likely continue.

• It will encourage misuse

  • Organizations will continue to count Multiple Media for the sake of internal consistency and to comply with their interpretation of logical user functionality

  • Organizations will count Multiple Media so that counts can be used effectively for estimating and measuring productivity.

• It makes counts more difficult to validate as the identified processes no longer align with the real-world user view

We need a consistent standard.

• Changes to the IFPUG standard since CPM 3.4 have reduced counts by approximately 25%. The proposed multiple media change will reduce this further by over 40% on some projects.

A reduction to software size will negatively affect all of your organization’s metrics captured over the years related to:

• Productivity

• Quality

• Staffing

• Cost

• Schedule

• We need a FP standard that has relevance and consistency to its original and continuing purpose.

Take a detailed look at the CPC proposal and determine its impact on your organization.

Technical Requirements and ISO Conformity

Multiple Media does not impact ISO Conformity.

• The ISO/IEC 14143 standards relating to functional size measurement does not mention nor specifically address multiple media. ISO has not made any changes or introduced any new standardization that requires any changes to the IFPUG method.

The choice of media is not a “Technical Requirement”

• In the context of information technology, the term “media” is used to describe information movements into and out of an application – screen display, printer, file, email, etc. The medium requested by the Client/User for an input/output represents a distinct business requirement and is completely within the User’s knowledge domain.

The ISO/IEC 14143-1:1998 definition of a Technical Requirement is:

“Requirements relating to the technology and environment, for the development, maintenance, support and execution of software.

NOTE – Examples of Technical Requirements include programming languages, testing tools, operating systems, database technology and user interface technologies.”

By this definition, “media” is not a technical requirement and there is no statement in the existing ISO/IEC 14143 suite of standards, or any in ISO/IEC or IEEE software engineering standards that would substantiate the CPC viewpoint that media is not a functional requirement.

The Way Forward

A YES to this motion allows IFPUG to develop a reasonable set of guidelines on how and when to count multiple media based on member input and common practices.

It is imprudent to impose a potentially significant change to the standard without appropriate research and analysis. Any significant change should make the method better for its intended role in estimation and productivity measurement.

This motion recommends that common practices be reviewed and directs how best to standardize multiple media rules. It is our hope that an independent party working with the membership, CPC, other committees and industry practitioners will develop a solution for the good of the function point counting community.

Detailed Position Paper "IFPUG FPA - The Case for Using Media to Identify Unique Elementary Processes"

• Download a printable PDF copy of the detailed position paper

This paper outlines why a YES vote is so important to ensure the current usefulness and the future growth of the IFPUG Function Point Analysis technique.  If you do nothing else, please read section 3. Impact of Interpretation of Media as a “Technical Requirement”.