Carol Dekkers / Daniel B. French
Session:
This presentation will explore the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sizing software projects using the International Function Point User Group (IFPUG) function points methodology and software estimates. As organizations increasingly seek efficiency and accuracy in project estimation, AI offers transformative potential by automating the function point counting process. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, AI can analyze historical project data, identify patterns, and predict function point counts with enhanced precision. This not only streamlines the estimation process but also reduces human error and bias. Additionally, AI-driven tools can provide insights into project complexity and resource allocation, enabling more informed decision-making. The synergy between AI and IFPUG function points represents a significant advancement in software estimating practices, facilitating better project planning and management. Ultimately, this approach enhances the overall reliability of software project estimations, paving the way for successful project delivery in an increasingly dynamic technological landscape.
Dan has 25+ years in a variety of IT roles including analyst, developer, tester, project management, software metrics and software estimation. He’s developed CMMi and ISO compliant process improvement and software estimation processes.
Dan holds a B.S. in Economics from Virginia Tech and holds certification as a Lifetime CFPS, PMP and CSM. He’s served as the Certification Director on the IPFUG Board of Directors and is currently the Partnership & Events Director. Previously he served as the Chair of the Certification Committee & Functional Software Sizing Committee (FSSC). He’s authored numerous white papers/presentations on software metrics, Agile, and estimation.
Roberto Meli
Session:
"Effective software project management hinges on accurate effort and cost estimation, which in turn depends on a precise understanding of the Scope of Measurement. This abstract explores how the strategic application of the ""Scope"" concept within the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) Function Point Analysis (FPA) and Simple Function Point (SFP) methods can be leveraged to enhance estimation reliability.
The Scope of Measurement defines the specific subset of software functionalities—Functional User Requirements (FUR)—included in a size measurement to answer a particular business question. While standard sizing methods provide a product-oriented measure of functional size, they often only statistically account for approximately 70-75% of the actual project effort. To bridge this gap for economic valuation, the concept of the Corrected Functional Measure (CFM) is introduced.
The CFM utilizes the Scope concept to incorporate factors that traditional functional size measurement (FSM) might exclude or treat indirectly, such as software reuse, replication, and algorithmic complexity. By defining the counting scope to include these ""corrective"" elements, estimators can derive an effort-proportional size that remains compliant with the logical principles of ISO/IEC 14143-1.
To further streamline estimation, particularly in Agile development contexts, the scope can be restricted to a subset of Base Functional Components (BFCs). Empirical evidence suggests that the statistical difference in precision between estimates based on full FPA/SFP and those focusing exclusively on transactional BFCs (Elementary Processes - EP) is negligible. By ignoring logical data structures (Logical Files - LF) and focusing only on EPs, organizations can implement ""super-light"" measurement techniques. This reduces measurement overhead and aligns with Agile sprints, which are primarily oriented toward producing transactions, thereby providing a fast, overhead-free opportunity for the business without compromising statistical reliability.
By precisely aligning the Scope with the project's actual production factors and utilizing the MFC or super-light transactional subsets, organizations can transform a purely functional size into a robust foundation for predicting person-days and overall costs. This methodology ensures that the estimation model is sensitive to both what the software does and the specific context in which it is produced."
Dr. Roberto Meli graduated in Computer Science in 1984. In 1996, he became CEO of DPO Srl (Italy). Over the past 30 years he has developed focused competences in project management and software measurement and has written more than 75 papers for technical magazines and international conferences. He is a consultant and lecturer on project management and software measurement for many major Italian companies and public organizations. He developed the Early & Quick (E&Q) Function Point Analysis method and the Simple Function Point (SFP) method. Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) from 1996 to 2004. Roberto has held leadership roles over the last 25 years including: IFPUG Board of Directors (Current role), Director of Functional Measurement Standards Committee, Chairperson of the GUFPI-ISMA (Gruppo Utenti Function Points Italia - Italian Software Measurement Association) board of directors, and coordinator of their Counting Practices Committee; Italian delegate to the MAIN (Metrics Association’s International Network), Chairperson of the COSMIC Measurement Practices Committee, Conference Chairperson of SMEF (Software Measurement European Forum), and President of the Simple Function Point Association.
Harold van Heeringen
Session:
"Accurate software cost estimation remains one of the most critical success factors in project delivery, yet it is often challenged by changing requirements, agile development practices, and inconsistent performance metrics. This presentation explores how organizations can improve estimation accuracy and project control by combining formal functional sizing techniques with objective team performance measurement and industry benchmarking.
Participants will learn how functional size measurement standards, such as IFPUG Function Points and NESMA methods, provide a consistent and technology-independent basis for estimating effort, cost, productivity, and value delivered. The session examines the limitations of relying solely on story points and highlights how functional size metrics create a more reliable foundation for forecasting, monitoring progress, and measuring business value in agile environments.
The presentation also demonstrates how organizations can use benchmarking data and key performance indicators—including delivery rate, cost efficiency, delivery speed, quality, and value delivered—to identify high-performing teams and improve project outcomes. Practical examples will illustrate how performance measurement supports more effective forecasting, scope management, and decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
Attendees will leave with actionable insights into establishing a mature estimation practice, improving visibility into agile team performance, and leveraging measurement data to drive more predictable project delivery and better business results."
TBD
Ifeanyi Echereobia
Session:
Function Point Analysis assumes something deceptively simple: that a clear and defensible boundary can be drawn around the application being measured. In modern financial systems, that assumption is increasingly difficult to sustain.
Enterprise banking platforms now operate within ecosystems of payment switches, compliance services, identity platforms, and third party workflow engines that participate directly in business processing while remaining outside the application team’s ownership and control. As functionality becomes distributed across APIs and external platforms, traditional boundary identification and counting decisions become less straightforward.
Drawing from real delivery experience across large scale banking and payment systems at Guaranty Trust Bank, this session explores practical FPA boundary challenges in API dependent financial environments. The presentation focuses on three recurring problem areas: classifying EIFs when external infrastructure performs core business processing, sizing workflow driven functionality where business logic resides in third party BPM platforms, and maintaining counting consistency when regulatory integrations redefine application behaviour over time.
Rather than proposing new rules or workarounds, this session presents principled interpretation approaches grounded in existing IFPUG standards. Attendees will leave with a practical boundary decision framework that can be applied to modern distributed systems in financial services, healthcare, government, and other highly integrated domains where the effective system perimeter is shaped as much by external dependencies as by internal application design.
Ifeanyi Echereobia is a Business Analyst and Solutions Architect at a leading West African financial institution, where he leads requirements delivery and software sizing for a corporate payments platform serving over 200,000 organisations.
Over the past five years, he has worked across banking, capital markets, pension administration, and consumer goods, applying software measurement and functional sizing practices to high volume, regulation driven enterprise systems. His experience includes payment processing platforms, interbank settlement integrations, enterprise workflow automation, and compliance driven platform enhancements.
His work frequently involves resolving FPA boundary ambiguity in systems that depend on external payment infrastructure, third party workflow platforms, and regulator mandated integrations, the practical measurement challenges explored in this presentation.
He recently completed the Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) examination and writes about enterprise payments and technical business analysis under the brand The Production BA.
His interest in software measurement emerged directly from delivery practice: the need to size, estimate, and communicate scope in environments where application boundaries are blurred by external dependencies and evolving regulatory constraints.
Marcello Sgamma
Session:
"Estimating effort in software development projects is one of the most complex challenges in software engineering, often defined more as an art than an exact science. The main difficulties stem from several critical factors. To mitigate these difficulties, adopting standard estimation methodologies (such as Function Points, COCOMO II, or Agile techniques like Planning Poker) is fundamental.
The IFPUG CPM states that FPA estimates are possible by making assumptions about unknown functions and/or their complexity in order to determine an approximate functional size (Part 2, page 3-8), and in uTip#3 (“Early Function Point Analysis and Consistent Cost Estimating”) presents three methods for approximating FPA: High Level FPA, Indicative FPA and Simple Function points.
This presentation shows how these three methods can be used to size an application early in the software development life cycle. By averaging the estimates deviation, a fairly stable function point size can be obtained and used for cost/schedule estimation. This outcome closely approximates detailed FPA, particularly on large-scale projects, while requiring significantly less time, thereby enhancing acceptance of IFPUG FPA for sizing and cost estimation."
"Graduated in Computer Sciences at University of Pisa, with Diploma from Scuola Normale Superiore. Senior consultant at NTTdata, expert in functional and architectural analysis, and in software metrics. In 30 years of experience in the ICT sector, he has gained skills from management of SW developments, to design of application and service management solutions, functional and architectural analysis of web portals, e-commerce solutions, etc. In recent years, consulting activities have focused on sizing of functional and non-functional developments, teaching and tutoring functional sizing, and in the functional analysis of projects and evolutions for the insurance market and for local public administration.
CFPS and CSP since 2015, active member of FSSC and NFSSC since 2021, Cosmic CCFL since 2024"
Luigi Buglione
Session:
TBD
Luigi Buglione is a Measurement & Process Improvement Specialist based in Rome, Italy. Public IFPUG and partner biographies describe him as serving in senior leadership roles across several influential organizations, including IFPUG, ISBSG and GUFPI-ISMA, where he has contributed to the promotion of functional sizing, non-functional measurement and international collaboration in software metrics. His recent IFPUG profile lists him as Secretary and Director for Partnerships and Academic Affairs, while other recent IFPUG and ISBSG biographies also note his service in additional board and standards-related roles over time.
Throughout his career, Luigi has been recognized for combining technical depth with a practical, community-building approach. IFPUG and related professional biographies note that he is a regular speaker at international conferences on software and service measurement, process improvement and quality. He has also been active in national and international technical associations, helping to foster alignment among practitioners, researchers and industry leaders working to improve software estimation and measurement practices.
His credentials reflect both breadth and rigor. IFPUG’s public Honorary Fellows page states that Luigi has earned multiple certifications, including IFPUG CFPS, CSS and CSMS, along with COSMIC CCFL, and that he holds a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems as well as a degree cum laude in Economics. Additional public professional biographies associate him with teaching and research activity and with a long-standing body of work in software engineering, measurement and process improvement.
Throughout the years he served IFPUG covering several roles (Director of Sizing Standards and ISO Standards, Conferences, Universities and R&D, Secretary; Member of FSSC/NFSSC/CEC) and has provided several CEP-valid presentations till today for the IFPUG community.
Luigi has also contributed to IFPUG’s thought leadership through publications and presentations that connect the history of software measurement with its future direction. In IFPUG’s 40 Years of Function Points: Past, Present, Future, he reflects on the development of Function Point Analysis and its continued relevance as software engineering evolves. More recent interviews and webinar biographies likewise position him as a leading voice on the role of metrics in Agile delivery, benchmarking, non-functional sizing and the growing impact of AI on software estimation and decision-making.
What distinguishes Luigi’s contribution to IFPUG is not only expertise, but sustained service. Across board leadership, standards work, conference speaking, academic outreach and international partnership-building, he has helped expand IFPUG’s visibility and influence worldwide. His work has supported the organization’s mission of promoting sound measurement practices while also encouraging the next generation of professionals to engage with standards-based approaches to software management and estimation.
As IFPUG honors Luigi Buglione as an Honorary Fellow, it also celebrates a career defined by leadership, scholarship and service. His dedication has strengthened both the organization and the broader software metrics profession, and his example continues to inspire practitioners around the world. Congratulations to Luigi on this well-deserved recognition.
Ricardo Ajax Dias Kosloski is a Professor at the University of Brasília, Brazil, working in Software Engineering, Software Measurement, Software Quality, Process Improvement, and Software Effort Estimation. He holds a Master’s degree in Knowledge Management and Information Technology from the Catholic University of Brasília, where he developed research on continuous improvement of software effort estimation using the Experience Factory concept.
He is a Certified Function Point Specialist and has professional experience in software factories, software process improvement initiatives, Capability Maturity Model Integration level 3 and level 5 implementations, Melhoria de Processo do Software Brasileiro initiatives, software metrics programs, and organizational productivity analysis. He has also worked with agile software metrics, software testing metrics, and measurement models for outsourced software services.
His doctoral research at the University of Brasília investigated the use of digital government services by older adults, with emphasis on digital citizenship, software product quality, accessibility, trust, security, and the barriers that affect the use of public digital services by this population. His current and future research interests include software engineering, digital government, organizational learning, software quality, and the use of digital government services and software systems by older adults.
