Measurement of Software Size: Advances Made by the COSMIC Community

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the design objectives that were set when work started on developing the COSMIC method of measuring a functional size of software requirements, the problems that were tackled during the development and some measurement results that demonstrate that the method has met its objectives. The paper begins by setting two main general objectives for software measurement, namely to help control software activities and to estimate future activities. Various approaches to software size measurement are described and the reasons are given why the COSMIC method was developed. The method is briefly described, followed by an account of advances by the COSMIC community. The paper concludes by discussing the main technical challenges that must still be tackled (principally measurement automation) and the organizational challenges (principally gaining a wider acceptance of the benefits of software measurement).