SPaMCAST Special 2014 - 1 SNAP 2.1 Manual - a podcast by Thomas M. Cagley Jr

The International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) released the Software Non-Functional Assessment Process (SNAP) Assessment Practices Manual 2.1 under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike License. IFPUG is the only international functional sizing standards organization to release a new standard under this license.

The SNAP provides organizations and projects a means to develop a quantifiable measure for the non-functional requirements (NFR). By sizing non-functional requirements software development can planned, evaluated and managed better; saving organizations time and money. The SNAP standard provides organizations using IFPUG measures with a unique competitive advantage to those using other software sizing methods which do not account for non-functional software size.

SNAP has been designed to be complementary to IFPUG Function Points which means you can use function points to measure the function size of an application or project and then leverage SNAP to measure the non-functional aspects of the application or project. The combination provides the person measuring with a very robust understanding of the project or application which can be used for leading and managing work.  Better information typically equates to better decisions and better decisions yield better projects.

Another benefit of this sizing this component of project work is that it will allow organizations to build historical data repositories that can be referenced to assist in decision making for the technical and/or quality aspects of application Assessment Practices.

Click the link above to read the document in full. Remember that the Creative Commons License allows you to free distribute the manual, create derivative works if you release them under the same Creative Commons License, but you can’t sell or use the material for commercial purposes.

Note:  I am currently prepping to take the SNAP certification test . . . Anyone want to study together?

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