A function point count has many uses.
- Function Points can be used to communicate more effectively with
business user groups.
- Function Points can be used to reduce overtime.
- Function points can be used to establish an inventory of all
transactions and files of a current
project or application. This
inventory can be used as a means of financial
evaluation of an
application. If an inventory is conducted for a development project
or
enhancement project,
then this same inventory could be used to
help maintain scope creep and
to help control
project growth. Even
more important this inventory helps understand the
magnitude of the
problem
- Function Points can be used to size software applications.
Sizing is an important component
in determining productivity
(outputs/inputs), predicting effort,
understanding unit cost, so on
and so forth.
- Unlike some other software metrics, different people can count
function points at different
times, to obtain the same measure
within a reasonable margin of error.
That is, the same
conclusion
will be drawn from the results.
- FPA can help organizations understand the unit cost of a
software application or project.
Once unit cost is understood tools,
languages, platforms can be
compared quantitatively
instead of
subjectively. This type of analysis is much easier to
understand
than technical
information. That is, a non-technical user can easily
understand Function
Points.
There are several other uses of function points. The following list
are some practical
applications of Function Points and FPA.
- Defining When and What to Re-Engineer
- Estimating Test Cases
- Understanding Wide Productivity Ranges
- Understanding Scope Creep
- Calculating the True Cost of Software
- Estimating Overall Project Costs, Schedule and Effort
- Understanding Maintenance Costs
- Help with contract negotiations
- Understanding the appropriate set of metrics