COSMIC (COmmon Software Measurement International Consortium) is a Function Point Analysis methodology that calculates effort based on the implementation of the software.
This methodology is comparatively simple, although it requires already a highly granulated understanding of the software.
The general formula to calculate the amount of function points is with COSMIC is:
#FPs = #inputs + #outputs + #control-flow-statements
Example
Consider a customer registration process, that asks for the name, email and a password and will subsequently send a confirmation email.
- Inputs = {Name, Email, Password} = 3
- Outputs = {Confirmation Message} = 1
The control statements can be expressed in a Decision Tree:
|--> Check if customer email address is already registered
| |
| |--> Yes: Display error message
| |
| |--> No: Create new customer account
The above tree has 3 nodes, which results in a count of 3.
The total FP count for the customer registration is thereby (amount inputs) + (amount outputs) + (amount control flow statements) = 3 + 1 + 3 = 7
