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MCReF: A Metric to Evaluate Complexity of Functional Requirements

Authors:
Carlos Roberto Paviotti
Luiz Eduardo Galvão Martins

Keywords: Requirements Engineering; Complexity of Requirements; Requirement Metrics.

Abstract:
The high sophistication of software systems has lead to an increase in the requirements complexity. Currently, there are metrics to evaluate the functional size of the software such as metrics of function point and use case points which are used with good results. However, a metric for the complexity for software requirements specifically had not yet been proposed. Identifying this gap, this paper proposes a Metric of Complexity of Functional Requirements (MCReF is an acronym composed by Portuguese words: Métrica de Complexidade de Requisitos Funcionais) indicated to evaluate and classify the complexity of software requirements. MCReF was developed from an empirical study based on a questionnaire that collected the opinion of 20 professionals from the requirements area to determine the weights of the factors that influence the requirement complexity. The responses were tabulated and given a statistical treatment to assess the weights of the complexity factors and their respective ranges of values for classification. A case study using MCReF is also presented in this paper.

Pages: 471 to 477

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013

Publication date: October 27, 2013

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-304-9

Location: Venice, Italy

Dates: from October 27, 2013 to October 31, 2013