Guideline for Sizing Agile Projects with COSMIC

Trudel, S., Buglione, L.

Publishing date
30-11-2010
Conference
IWSM/MetriKon 2010
Download option
Allow direct download

Download

Agile has become one of the most used ‘buzzwords’ in ICT projects in recent years
but the growing diffusion and interest of its related methods and techniques has not
been accompanied by the same maturity in sizing and estimation practices. In particular
the application of a functional size measurement (FSM) method for sizing
requirements is not typical to ”agilists”, preferring to use mostly estimations based
on experience and analogy. In such way, one of several drawbacks is a reduced
data gathering from projects, not allowing to do (even at a basic level) statistical
analysis, for better estimating the proper efforts value for next user story and – as a
whole – of the project. This paper describes the reasons why a guideline for sizing
Agile projects with the COSMIC method was required, along with a summary of the
resulting guideline. Several agile methods are briefly described, more specifically
their expected requirements format and their measurement practices.