Analysis of COCOMO and UCP

After an early requirement design, project managers mostly use the requirement specifications to get an estimate of functional size of software which helps in estimating effort required and tentative cost of the software. An accurate estimate is necessary to be able to negotiate price of a software project and to plan and schedule project activities. Function Point sizing method for estimation is used frequently to estimate functional size of software. Another popular method of functional sizing is Use Case Points (UCP). UCP method of estimation although less used than FP based estimation, but is simpler than FP based method. One reason for this is - FP sizing metric often uses COCOMO-II or other effort estimation method to convert size estimate in FPs into effort estimate where as direct conversion formula can be used for converting size in UCPs to effort estimate. This paper compares results of both approaches for two mid-size business applications and tries to understand the correlation between the results of two approaches.