Complexity Factors in Use Case Points estimating method
George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
Hi all,
I am starting to use the Use Case Points estimating (I usually used Function Points up to now) and all is clear until calculating Unadjusted Use Case Points (= weighting from actors + weighting from use cases).
However, determining the complexity factors is not that clear for me. For example, for the Technical Complexity Factor I found multiple tables with different criteria (similar but not identical) proposed by various authors, which leads me to believe that the set of criteria is custom to each project technical environment. However, I could not figure out the rule to create the set of criteria: some authors use 10 question, others 13 or 14. I hoped that the sum of weights is constant for the TFactor to be in a fixed range – in other words one can adjust the questions and weights as long as the sum of weight*score (score being 0 to 5) for all questions fits in a predetermined range of values.
Moreover, looking at the formula to calculate the technical complexity factor TCF = 0.6 + (0.1*TFactor) it would make sense to me that a medium project has a TCF = 1. Considering that for the simplest of all projects (TFactor = 0) we have the lower limit TCF = 0.6, it seems reasonable to think that the upper limit would be TCF = 1.4 (interval centered in 1, with 0.4 variation down and up).
However, I could not find any author supporting this reasoning, or offering any explanation for TCF formula or TFactor calculation. Having a math background I have a hard time using a formula I do not understand, so I hope someone can shed some light in this issue or point me to a resource where this is explained. By the way, the exact same issue is valid for the Enterprise Complexity Factor, where the variations between authors are even more visible.
Thank you very much for whomever might be able to provide additional information on this topic.
