Improving Use Case Points Techniques to Support Size Estimation of Software Projects

There are many different ways to size estimate of software projects. However, software developers always have problems in choosing the right method for their projects. The Use Case Points (UCP) is among these common methods, but there is still some complexity in using them in a way that greatly contributes to obtaining accurate estimates. This paper presents an improvement of the UCP method, whereby an activity diagram is used and adapted and a weighting mechanism is developed. The improved method “Merging use case points (M-UCP)” will contribute to reducing the complexity of the traditional UCP method in the estimation process. In addition, a case study is introduced to test the refined method, and the results showed that the method performed better in comparison with previous methods in size estimating software development.