Principle Component Analysis of Function Point Elements

Abstract

Function point elements are metrics to measure the size of software projects. This article investigates the relationship among function point elements using principle component analysis. Principle component analysis reveals the relationship of different function point elements such that they may be measuring the same attribute of a software project. Therefore, principle component analysis brings out the influence of a function point element over each other. Principle component analysis can help to integrate the function point elements. Function Point elements have attracted much attention in the software research and development industry. Ever since function point were introduced by IBM in 70's their nature, behaviour, impact, distribution and correlation have been studied by the software researchers and the software practitioners. The idea behind function points is to standardize the measurement of the various software functions to estimate the software development effort which is independent of the computer language, development methodology, technology and the capability of the team developed the software. The International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) was founded in the late 80s and is a membership governed, non-profit organization committed to promoting and supporting function point analysis and other software measurement techniques. There have been various releases of the Function Point by the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) which includes release 'Counting Practice Manual - 4.2' release. It is critical to understand the relationship of the function point elements with other components of software projects; for example software quality, software reliability, software defects and testing requirements. Similarly, it is essential to understand the relationship of function point elements with each other. The degree of influence of a function point element over other elements shows that the function point element may be measuring the same attribute of a software project which other function point elements are measuring. Furthermore, based on this relationship, a function point element can be predicted from other function point elements. Previous studies (1-3) discussed the relationships among function point elements. This paper further extends this discussion and use principle component analysis to investigate the relationship of function point elements. The paper is organized in the following way: Section 2 discusses the function point elements, Section 3 describes the dataset used for the principle component analysis, Section 4 presents the principle component analysis of the function point elements and Section 5 draws some conclusions.