ANALYSIS OF THE PER-UNIT WORK EFFORT AND PER-UNIT WORK COST OF THE

WEB INFORMATION PORTAL ENHANCEMENT – A CASE STUDY FROM POLAND

Beata Czarnacka-Chrobot, Ph.D.Professor, Warsaw School of Economics, Poland,

Institute of Information Systems and Digital Economy,e-mail: bczarn@sgh.waw.pl

Problem Statement (1/3)

This analysis presents a case study on tender competitition …concerning the enhancement of

Web Information Portal (WIP) of …one of the largest public institutions

in Poland: ZUS - Social Insurance

The COSMIC method is used as a software size measurement method in ZUS

Work cost/effort per unit of WBI enhancement should be measured with regard to 1 CFP

In competition one of the 3 potential developers (D3) offered possibility to enhance WIP system at the cost of 300 US dollars per 1 CFP

Problem Statement (2/3)

Other 2 attempted to prove that this is not possible at such unit cost

According to them, the unit cost was underestimated even several times

D1D2

D3

Problem Statement (3/3)

Analysis served as a main and sufficient basis for settling legal dispute between a company D3 and 2 competing companies

It was also necessary to prove that: the average per-unit work effort on the level of 16 work-

hours per 1 CFP offered by D3 is not underestimatedand to relate these two attributes: per-unit work effort and per-

unit work cost

D1D2

D3

Aim of the Paper

To demonstrate that:

It is possible to carry out enhancement of the WIP at such per-unit cost in Polish circumstances

The offer of D3 does not feature the so-called abnormally low tender price

(as defined in the Polish act “Public Procurement Law”)

This is possible to choose given tenderer (D3)

due to the legal reasons

Per-unit cost of software development/enhancement depends directly on

per-unit work effort/its inverse: productivity

difficult to determine - it depends on about 50 factors, e.g.:

Assumptions for the Case Study (1/2)

size and type of software

type of project

field of application

technological environment (e.g. language generation,

hardware platform and specific languages)

many other factors affecting

productivity

Documentation delivered by D3: 1) the subject of considerations is the work cost/effort per

unit concerned only size resulting from FUR (NFR were not considerated in this analysis)

2) Boundary functional size of system: 6500 CFP3) Type of software: dedicated business application (data-

driven), 4) Type of project: enhancement of the existing software

(specific actions not mentioned)5) PL: 3GL should be employed, in

particular Java/J2EE 6) Hardware platform: PCs.

Assumptions for the Case Study (2/2)

Appropriate resources of own benchmarking data, …which would allow to determine specific to a given

software organization work effort/cost per unit, …are not owned by Polish Social Insurance Institution

This situation is normal in Poland where COSMIC method has been employed for a relatively short time now

Usefulness of Benchmarking Data (1/3)

Usefulness of repositories with general and commonly available benchmarking data reveals

The largest repository with such data for dedicated software development/ enhancement projects (D/EP) with products measured using the FSM methods is managed by the ISBSG

Current version of the ISBSG repository contains data: concerning about 6000 projects from about 30 countries for software development and enhancement normalized according to the ISO/IEC 15939 standard [„Systems

and software engineering – Measurement process”] verified and representative of the current technology

The most important ISBSG report: „The performance of business application, real-time and component software projects. An analysis of COSMIC - measured projects in the ISBSG database”, made with the COSMIC cooperation

Usefulness of Benchmarking Data (2/3)

It analyses for various types of software systems the work effort per unit with regard to 1 CFP: • project delivery rate (PDR) = inverse of productivity

ISBSG report: large business application enhancement projects (above 1000 CFP) should be treated as development projects

ISBSG: three key factors determining work effort per unit and therefore cost per unit :

Usefulness of Benchmarking Data (3/3)

1) application size 2) generation of programming

language 3) hardware platform

4) particular programming

language

The PDR varies with regard to the software size:

The productivity median for BA DP increases (PDR median decreases) along with the growth of size

Economies of scales may be noted for BA DP

Work effort per unit decreases which should entail decrease of the cost per 1 CFP

Dedicated Business Applications Enhancement Per-unit Work Effort with regard to 1 CFP (1/4)

The analysis of PDR based on data from 162 new business application development projects [BA DP] (1999-2011):

Dedicated Business Applications Enhancement Per-unit Work Effort with regard to 1 CFP (2/4)

PDR(work-hours/1 CFP)

3GL Java/J2EE programming

language

PC

PDR median 24.5 23 23Minimum PDR 2.7 3 3Maximum PDR 330.6 139 13925% of the projects have PDR not higher than

14.3 15.8 8

PDR values dependent on programming language and hardware platform (PDR median normalized for 100-200 CFP size):

If this is possible to consider all 3 key factors, the data should be treated as initial for which correction coefficients should be applied:

Dedicated Business Applications Enhancement Per-unit Work Effort with regard to 1 CFP (3/4)

PC

Java (and similar) 20 ± 10

Application size in CFP

10-50 50-100

100-200 200-300 300-500 500-1000

1000+

PDR correction coefficient

1.2 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.65 0.5

Dedicated Business Applications Enhancement Per-unit Work Effort with regard to 1 CFP (4/4)

Conclusion no. 1: Taking into account the adopted assumptions and the

above presented data it should be stated that the work effort per unit (PDR) of WIP enhancement on

the level of 16 work-hours per 1 CFP cannot be regarded as underestimated work effort

The ISBSG report - limited to the analysis of the unit effort – not unit cost - with regard to 1 CFP

Data for unit cost may be found for the IFPUG/NESMA FSM and used in order to estimate work cost per unit with regard to 1 CFP indirectly: by taking into account dependencies between the

IFPUG/NESMA UFP and COSMIC FP (only examples to show differences):

Analysis of the dedicated BA EP unit cost with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP – indirect calculation (1/6)

Is there any report, which analyses unit cost with regard to 1 CFP...?

No.Author (year) Sample

sizeFormula (regression

analysis) R2

Number of CFP for UFP =

1001. Fetcke

(1999)4 CFP = 1.1 × UFP – 7.6

(UFP – number of IFPUG unadjusted function points)

0.97 102.4

2. Abran, Azziz, Desharnais (2005)

6

CFP = 0.84 × UFP + 18(UFP – number of IFPUG

unadjusted function points)

0.91 102

3. Desharnais, Abran (2006)

14 CFP = 1.0 × UFP – 3(UFP – number of IFPUG

unadjusted function points)

0.93 97

4. Van Heeringen (2007) 26 CFP = 1.22 × UFP – 64(UFP – number of NESMA

Unadjusted Function Points)

0.97 58

5. C. Jones (2007) - 1 UFP = 1.15 CFP(UFP – number of IFPUG

unadjusted function points)

- 86.9

6. Cuadrado-Gallego, Buglione, Domínguez-

Alda, de Sevilla, Gutierrez de Mesa,

Demirors (2010)

- 1 UFP 1 CFP(UFP – number of IFPUG

unadjusted function points)

- 100

The results of conversion differ greatly - it is not possible to determine precisely what is

dependency between IFPUG/NESMA UFP and

COSMIC FP

The researchers and practitioners suggest for general estimation purposes:

1 IFPUG/NESMA UFP ≈ 1 CFP Based on the ISBSG report „Software Project Costs” - the cost

per unit with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP: for majority of cases: from 300 USD to 1000 USD median: 716 USD

Analysis of the dedicated BA EP unit cost with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP – indirect calculation (3/6)

The work cost in particular country

Poland has ranked among countries having the lowest cost of work per 1 IFPUG UFP (estimated to be app. 155 USD on average)

Analysis of the dedicated BA EP unit cost with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP – indirect calculation (4/6)

Country Cost per unit (1 IFPUG UFP)Japan 1600Sweden 1500Switzerland 1450France 1425Great Britain 1400Germany 1300USA 1000

India 125Poland 155Hungary 175Thailand 180Venezuela 190Mexico 200Argentina 250

These differences result from macroeconomic factors and although they get smaller over time, they do remain significant

The ISBSG data - in over 80% concern projects executed in countries with several times higher cost per unit (even 10)

Therefore the cost per unit of delivering 1 UFP in Poland should oscillate around lower boundary of the cost indicated by the ISBSG data (300 USD per 1 IFPUG UFP)

Analysis of the dedicated BA EP unit cost with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP – indirect calculation (5/6)

The relation between the offered work effort per unit (16 work-hours per 1 CFP) and cost per unit (300 USD per 1 CFP): 1 work-day (8 work-hours) would cost about 150 USD, average

monthly cost of work = 3375 USD It is fairly high as for Polish conditions - it may comprise

average gross pay of a developer and company’s profit margin

Conclusion no. 2: The cost per unit (1 CFP) of WIP enhancement on the

level of approx. 300 USD cannot be regarded as abnormally low cost

Analysis of the dedicated BA EP unit cost with regard to 1 IFPUG UFP – indirect calculation (6/6)

There is no basis to consider the price of 1 CFP offered by a D3 company as abnormally low tender price as defined in the “Public Procurement Law”

The offer of D3 developer can be choosen due to the legal reasons

D3 company offered attributes close to the lower boundary value - it is now facing a difficult task to keep to them

The analysis served as a main and sufficient basis for settling legal dispute between a company D3 and 2 competing companies – in favour of D3 company

Conclusions

Thank you for your attention.

Any questions?

Beata Czarnacka-Chrobot, Ph.D.Professor, Warsaw School of Economics, Poland,

Institute of Information Systems and Digital Economy,e-mail: bczarn@sgh.waw.pl