Manage software complexity metric

Understanding the difference between process complexity. Cyclomatic complexity is a software metric used to indicate the complexity of a program. One of my favorite tools to collect metrics for a software project is called sourcemonitor from campwood software. The cyclomatic complexity vg has been introduced by thomas mccabe in 1976.

Attaining process capability requires approaching process complexity. Complex code usually means either the problem its solving is complicated, or that the code is of poor quality. Cyclomatic complexity, also known as vg or the graph theoretic number, is probably the most widely used complexity metric in software engineering. Complexity measures offer great potential for con taining the galloping cost of software development and maintenance. Over the years, software architects and developers have designed many methods and metrics to evaluate software complexity and its impact on quality attributes, such as maintainability, quality, and performance. They define fanin of a procedure as the number of local flows into that procedure plus the number of data structures from. Top 5 software metrics to manage development projects.

Developer explains the basics of the software engineering to the manager. You can use project management software tools to surface risks and display them in a way that improves risk awareness. When comparing process complexity versus process capability, the two remain interrelated. Mccabe complexity metrics in his paper a complexity measure, ieee transactions on software engineering, dec 1976, thomas mccabe defined a set of metrics to characterize the complexity of a software modules internal control flow logic. Complexity is domain and languagespecific, but still there are some typical complexity metrics that one can start with. Best project management metrics villanova university.

The mccabe complexity is one of the more widelyaccepted software metrics, it is intended to be. And ensuring maintainable source code relies on a number of factors, such as testability and understandability. Software metrics are very seductive to management because complex. Comprehensive in scope with extensive industry examples, it shows how to measure software quality and use measurements to. A robust software complexity measurement program provides an organization with the opportunity to. Software metrics are valuable for many reasons, including measuring software performance, planning work items, measuring productivity, and many other uses. They define fanin of a procedure as the number of local flows into that procedure plus the number of data structures from which that procedure retrieves information. As you can see from this screenshot sourcemonitor neatly display statistics about your projects including the cyclomatic complexity. Management of software projects is much more complex than management of many other types of projects. But software project management is a very difficult task. Complexities to estimate the duration of the project. Glen myers suggested a revision to the calculation in an extension to the cyclomatic measure of program complexity, sigplan notices, oct 1977.

A more appropriate use of metrics requires more management involvement in reporting and recording movements in trends because the ecosystem that surrounds a team is management s responsibility. In this chapter from his book on software quality engineering, stephen h. Some of the more commonly used metrics are mccabes cyclomatic complexity metric. A project management metric is a quantifiable measure used to gauge project performance or progress. Metrics and key performance indicators division of. What is software complexity and how can you manage it. Is there is a free software tool to measure the complexity of software by using mccabe and halstead metrics.

Software metrics are a measure of some property of a piece of software or its specifications. Different project management metrics can be defined based on a projects objective and complexity. Estimate made of metric and then model predicts effort required. A metric that assesses the complexity of software code by checking how different software metrics are affected by automated obfuscation of the code. Software testing metrics, which are also known as software test measurement, indicates the extent, amount, dimension, capacity, as well as the rise of various attributes of a software process and tries to improve its effectiveness and efficiency imminently. Software metrics massachusetts institute of technology. The human factor it is harder to read a program than write it. Measures the number of linearlyindependent paths through a program module control flow. Productivity this metric allows project managers to assess the utilization of resources. The study was tasked to examine the growth in flight software size and complexity, recommend ways to reduce and better manage complexity, and identify methods of testing complex logic. The study gave special attention to fault protection software because of its complexity. A new metric for estimating design complexity is described and its properties are discussed in terms of its ability to estimate design effort.

Capers jones, from the forewordmetrics and models in software quality engineering, second edition, is the definitive book on this essential topic of software development. Long term benefits of software complexity analysis measuring software complexity on an ongoing basis helps project teams and technology management detect problems early in the development cycle, and identify areas of source code where complexity is. Process complexity refers to the nature of interplay and relationships of various elements and tasks in a process, whereas process capability is the measurement of the extent to which the process confirms what is required or expected. Mccabe iq provides over 100 metrics out of the box, including the mccabeauthored cyclomatic complexity metric, and provides the flexibility to import and customize your own set of metrics. Henry and kafura introduced software structure metrics based on information flow in 1981 which measures complexity as a function of fan in and fan out. Function points are a metric of software complexity that generally correspond to a functional requirement.

Model developed using historical cost information that relates some software metric usually lines of code to project cost. I am looking for free software that can be used to measure software code complexity by. If we had to pick one metric to use for measuring complexity, it would be cyclomatic complexity. Maintainability measures how easily software can be maintained. Software development metrics are quantitative measurements of a software product or project, which can help management understand software performance, quality, or the productivity and efficiency of software teams. Formal code metricssuch as lines of code loc, code complexity. Mccabe iq builds stability, accountability and quality into software development initiatives.

It is a quantitative measure of the number of linearly independent paths through a programs source code. How to manage and handle complexity using code metrics. Earlier many projects have failed due to faulty project management practices. Time how long does it take to perform a certain operation the number of components to deal with the number of options to choose from, the number of people to manage, the number of ideas to highlight in the presentation. The goal is obtaining objective, reproducible and quantifiable measurements, which may have numerous valuable applications in schedule and budget planning, cost estimation, quality assurance testing, software debugging, software performance optimization, and optimal personnel task assignments. Software metrics can be classified into three categories. Metrics and models in software quality engineering, 2nd. In fact, its common for developers often use the terms software complexity and cyclomatic complexity. Software metrics is a standard of measure that contains many activities which involve some degree of measurement. In fact, its common for developers often use the terms software complexity and cyclomatic complexity interchangeably. However, depending on who you are or who you address your report to, product metrics might vary.

This metric considers the control logic in a procedure. Software metrics help project managers to gain an insight into the efficiency of the software process, project, and product. Defined by thomas mccabe, its easy to understand and calculate, and it gives useful results. You derive metrics by comparing to a predetermined baseline of two or more measurements taken over time. Product metrics describe the characteristics of the product such as size, complexity, design features, performance, and quality level. Its without question the betterknown complexity measurement method. Management metrics techniques for software cost estimation 1. Such thing is not trivial because it asks us to give a clear definition of what is a good vs bad application, what is a. These characteristics can be used to improve the development and maintenance activities of the software. He also describes the key metrics used by several major software developers and discusses software metrics data collection.

Software metrics are similar to the four functions of management. Time to market is traditionally a marketing metric that is used to manage new product development. Software quality, testing, and security analysis mccabe. They can evaluate architectural measures, quality measures, software complexity, or functional size. Excessive complexity increases an effort required for every feature delivery, reduces quality as an. The most scientific approach but not necessarily the most accurate. Mccabe iq is used to analyze and visualize the security, quality, and testing of mission, life, and business critical applications, utilizing a comprehensive set of advanced software metrics including the mccabeauthored cyclomatic complexity metric.

Successful software complexity measure development must be motivated by a the ory of programming behavior. Kan discusses several metrics in each of three groups of software quality metrics. Within the software development process, many metrics are that are all connected. Formal code metricssuch as lines of code loc, code complexity, instruction path length, etc. This is possible by collecting quality and productivity data and then analyzing and comparing these data with past averages in order to know whether quality improvements have occurred. Software metrics are the computer sciences attempt to make software measurable and complexity can be measured in a few different ways. This ecosystem includes the organizations policies, the way work is scheduled or planned and the way that teams and people are organized. It relates to the size, consistency, structure, and complexity of the codebase. This is the single best book on software quality engineering and metrics that ive encountered. A key performance indicator kpi is a quantitative measure used to evaluate project performance against expected results. M any customers often say that their applications are hard to maintain, difficult to understand, complex and use many ways to describe the fact that they would like to develop or have to maintain an application that is simpler than that they have. Existing studies and experiences have shown that highly complex systems are harder to understand, maintain, and upgrade. Complexity metrics and difference analysis for better. An integrated ap proach to metric development, testing, and use is.