Use Case Points Effort Estimation Based on Different Specification Formats

The Use Case Point method  (UCP method) allows early, easy estimation of  the anticipated effort during a software development project. The basis  for  such an estimation in real industrial cases is frequently a number of rough specifications in different formats and of differing granularity. The success of the UCP method and  comparability  of  the  results  depends  above  all  on whether,  and  how,  it  is possible  to map  the existing  specification  to use  cases  in  the  sense of  the UCP method.  This  article  summarizes  a  suggested  guideline  that  has  been  derived from real software specification cases by the software developer sd&m.