Exploration of a method for COSMIC size prediction from S-BPM

Effort is the main cost in software development projects, and software size is the main input for effort estimation. Project managers need to have sound size estimations to estimate required software effort. The inputs for size estimation models are generally software artifacts that are produced later in software development life cycle; however project managers need the estimations prior to the project start date. In this research we explore a method to estimate COSMIC functional size by using S-BPM diagrams that may be created before the project’s start date. We tested our method with a case study and observed a 5% estimation error with respect to COSMIC size measurements.