Mapping the OO-Jacobson approach into function point analysis

Function point analysis measures user requested functionality independent of the technology used for implementation. Software applications are represented in an abstract model that contains the items that contribute to the functional size. When function point analysis is applied to object-oriented software, the concepts of the development method have to be mapped into that abstract model. The article proposes a mapping of the use case driven object-oriented software engineering method by Jacobson et al. (1992) into the abstract function point model. The mapping has been formulated as a small set of concise rules that support the actual measurement process. The work demonstrates the applicability of function point analysis as a measure of functional software size to the OO-Jacobson approach. This supports the thesis that function point analysis measures independent of the technology used for implementation and that it can be used in the object-oriented paradigm