What are some Metrics that can be used during the SDLC? List various steps and applicable metrics?
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,71151,00.html
what are some metrics that can be used during the SDLC
Metrics play a crucial role in monitoring and evaluating the performance and progress of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Here are some commonly used metrics at various stages of the SDLC:
1. Requirements Gathering:
- Requirements volatility: This metric measures the number of changes in the requirements over time, helping identify the stability of the requirements.
- Requirements coverage: It measures the percentage of requirements traced back to the system design, ensuring completeness.
2. Design:
- Cyclomatic complexity: It measures the complexity of the software design based on the number of independent paths through the code, allowing for effective testing and code maintenance.
- Code-to-comment ratio: This metric measures the percentage of comments in code, helping assess code readability and maintainability.
3. Development:
- Defect density: It measures the number of defects per unit of code, highlighting the code quality and the effectiveness of development practices.
- Code churn: This metric calculates the amount of code that requires modification over time, indicating code stability and the impact of changes.
4. Testing:
- Test coverage: It measures the percentage of code covered by test cases, ensuring comprehensive testing and reducing the risk of undiscovered defects.
- Defect density: This metric calculates the number of defects found during testing per unit of code and helps identify the effectiveness of testing efforts.
5. Deployment and Maintenance:
- Mean time to repair (MTTR): It measures the average time taken to fix a defect or address an issue, indicating the efficiency of maintenance processes.
- System uptime: This metric measures the total time the system remains operational, reflecting its reliability and availability.
To access more comprehensive lists of metrics that can be used throughout the SDLC, you can refer to resources such as the article "Key performance indicators for software development" on Computerworld (http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,71151,00.html). It provides a detailed breakdown of metrics applicable to each stage of the SDLC.