@Article{mochodek2010ucp,
  author = {Ochodek, Miros{\l}aw and Nawrocki, Jerzy and Kwarciak, Kamil},
  title = {Simplifying effort estimation based on Use Case Points},
  year = {2011},
  URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2010.10.005},
  abstract = {Context: The Use Case Points (UCP) method can be used to estimate software development{\~}effort based on a use-case model and two sets of adjustment factors relating to the environmental and{\~}technical complexity of a project. The question arises whether all of these components are important{\~}from the effort estimation point of view.  Objective: This paper investigates the construction of UCP in order to find possible ways of simplifying{\~}it.  Method: The cross-validation procedure was used to compare the accuracy of the different variants of{\~}UCP (with and without the investigated simplifications). The analysis was based on data derived from a{\~}set of 14 projects for which effort ranged from 277 to 3593 man-hours. In addition, the factor analysis{\~}was performed to investigate the possibility of reducing the number of adjustment factors.  Results: The two variants of UCP - with and without unadjusted actor weights (UAW) provided similar{\~}prediction accuracy. In addition, a minor influence of the adjustment factors on the accuracy of UCP{\~}was observed. The results of the factor analysis indicated that the number of adjustment factors could{\~}be reduced from 21 to 6 (2 environmental factors and 4 technical complexity factors). Another{\~}observation was made that the variants of UCP calculated based on steps were slightly more accurate{\~}than the variants calculated based on transactions. Finally, a recently proposed use-case-based size{\~}metric TTPoints provided better accuracy than any of the investigated variants of UCP.  Conclusion: The observation in this study was that the UCP method could be simplified by rejecting{\~}UAW; calculating UCP based on steps instead of transactions; or just counting the total number of steps{\~}in use cases. Moreover, two recently proposed use-case-based size metrics Transactions and TTPoints{\~}could be used as an alternative to UCP to estimate effort at the early stages of software development.},
  journal = {Information and Software Technology},
  volume = {53},
  number = {3},
  pages = {200--213},
  keywords = {effort estimation, use case points, ttpoints, use-case transaction}
}