Function Point Method-based Software Project Earned Value Analysis And Assessment Of Progress In Process Research

With the rapid development of software industry, the performance of software project is unsatisfactory: the rate of failure is too high. Most of such failure is resulted of poor project management such as running over schedule or budget. Hence, it is necessary to strengthen the management of schedule and cost. Earned value method is a practical and integrated tool to control schedule and cost. However, there are also some problems during the application of earned value method in the software project because of the inherent characteristic of software project.After analyzing the problems coming from the application of earned value method for software project, this thesis suggested that the main reason for the problems is the estimation of key metrics in the software engineering process. Due to the subjective estimating of the work performed, the basic data of earned value method is not very accurate. While, there have been a lot of researches on the measurement of the software size and efforts for the prepare for software planning, both the techniques and the methods are mature. One of most popular and accurate metric technique is Function Point. This thesis introduced Function Point into the measurement of the work performed, and constructed the amendatory earned value method for software project based on Function Point. Furthermore, some theoretically feasible ways were proposed in this thesis in allusion to the inherent limitation of the earned value method, especially when the earned value of the works that be not comprised in the schedule is zero.Earned value method is a practically integrated tool, but its application must be combined with progress tracking and evaluation. Therefore, this thesis constructs the frame for software project evaluation process, which takes earned value method for software project based on Function Point as its center, through the analysis on prevenient studies, combining with the process of progress tracking. And example proves that it is practical.