The Estimation of Effort Based on Use Cases

by John Smith. All Rights Reserved.

A PDF version of this article is available, however, you must have Adobe Acrobat installed to view it. You can also download this and other Rational Unified Process (RUP) white papers from the IBM Web site.

Abstract

It should be possible to form estimates of size and effort that development will require, based on characteristics of the use-case model, which captures the functional requirements. So shouldn’t there be a use-case based equivalent of function points?

This white paper looks at some important techniques for estimating development effort that can be included in the RUP. A framework for estimation, based on use cases, is presented here. This framework considers the idea of use-case level, size, and complexity for different categories of system.