COSMIC Sizing

The engineering standard for software sizing

This is the official home of the COSMIC organisation who maintain the COSMIC Software Sizing Standard, the #1 metric for measuring software size.

The COSMIC software sizing methodology is applicable to any type of software regardless of development language or methodology, including Agile and ScaledAgile.   COSMIC is endorsed and used by several governments including the US government (GAO), The EU Large Systems group.

Benchmarking

Assurance

Contracting

Management

Universal

Mature, Valid, Consistent

Functional size measurement is an important basis for measuring productivity and for estimating effort for software activities.  The COSMIC Functional Sizing Methodology is the mature standard for software size measurement, it has remain largely unchanged since 1998.  It is based on fundamental software principles, and is therefore suited to all types of software.  The method was developed by a team of experts and builds on the original functional size measurement methodologies.  The COSMIC Sizing methodology became an ISO standard in 2003.

Easy, Universal and Open

The COSMIC Functional Size Measurement Method is free, easy to learn and simple to use.  It is applicable to all types of software and any development techniques including Agile.  The method is completely open, all the documentation is available in the public domain for free download. COSMIC is equally suited to Agile and Scaled Agile as other more traditional methodologies.

A great place to start learning about COSMIC.

The manual that defines the method.

The measurement manual and other documents translated into other languages.

The term COSMIC is an acronym for the Common Software Measurement International Consortium, the not for profit organisation that governs the standard and certifications.  The organization is repsonsible for maintaining the standard  COSMIC method for Functional Size Measurement, officially recognized by ISO/IEC as standard ISO/IEC 19761:2011.