- UCP is used when the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Rational Unified Process (RUP) methodologies are being used for the software design and development. The concept of UCP is based on the requirements for the system being written using use cases, which is part of the UML set of modeling techniques. The UCP technique was developed by Gustav Karner in 1993 while employed at what was known at the time as Objectory Systems, which later merged into Rational Software and then IBM. The UCP method was created to solve for estimating the software size of systems that were object oriented. It is based on similar principles as the Function Point (FP) estimation method, but was designed for the specific needs of object oriented systems and system requirements based on use cases.
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Task based or activity based estimation estimates software development effort without estimating the software size. Its used for estimating engineering projects in manufacturing industries.
Expected effort = [(optimistic effort + pessimistic effort) + 4 * (mostlikely effort)] / 6
- Choosing the size
1.1 Use any software size measure, this can be the standard used in your organization or that which is comfortable to you. - Analyze each tier and estimate the size of the software to be developed at each tier.
- Determining the effort
3.1 Convert the estimated size into effort using any methods - Estimating graphics assets
4.1 Estimate development of graphics assets using task-based estimation considering skill of graphics designer - Overall effort
5.1 Sum all the derived efforts to get overall effort requirement for the project
- Productivity
Its the rate of achievement and can be expressed as person-hours per unit of software size or as software size per person-day. Different productivity can be applied to various tiers based upon the team. - Person-hours per unit of software size
eg. Effort = 100 size * 10 person-hours or productivity = 1000 person-hours - Units of software size per person-day
eg. Effort = 100 size / 0.5 size per person-day or productivity = 200 person-days - Contingency allowance 10%