Software quality data is essential for system development, as it can help you measure, monitor, and improve the performance, reliability, and usability of your software products. In this article, we will explore how you can use software quality data to inform system development decisions, from planning to testing to deployment.
Software quality metrics are quantitative indicators that measure some aspects of software quality, such as complexity, defects, maintainability, security, and user satisfaction. You can use software quality metrics to set goals, track progress, identify risks, and evaluate outcomes of your system development activities. For example, you can use code complexity metrics to identify areas that need refactoring, defect density metrics to prioritize bug fixing, and user feedback metrics to assess user satisfaction.
In addition to the quality metrics mentioned here, a couple of good metrics that go together and predict software quality are Cycle time and Change Failure Rate. Cycle time refers to the amount of time that passes between when a line of code is written to when it is deployed to production, and being used by customers. Change Failure rate refers to the number of times when a change results in a negative outcome like a bug or downtime needing an immediate hot fix etc. Just going super fast and releasing often is not as good as going fast and having a low percentage of your changes resulting in failure.
Software quality models are frameworks that define the characteristics and sub-characteristics of software quality, and how they can be measured and evaluated. You can use software quality models to guide your system development decisions, by aligning them with your quality requirements and standards. For example, you can use the ISO/IEC 25010 model to define the quality attributes that are relevant for your software product, such as functionality, reliability, efficiency, usability, security, and portability.
Software quality tools are software applications that help you collect, analyze, and visualize software quality data, and support your system development processes. You can use software quality tools to automate, streamline, and enhance your system development activities, such as coding, testing, debugging, reviewing, and deploying. For example, you can use code analysis tools to check your code quality and compliance, testing tools to perform automated and manual tests, debugging tools to find and fix errors, and deployment tools to deliver your software product.
No discussion about quality tooling would be complete without talking about Continuous Integration (CI) tooling. CI tools put test automation in the path to production. CI takes every code change, builds and packages it into deployable software, deploys it, runs different tests like unit, integration, front end tests etc and gives quick feedback to developers on whether their code change was good or bad. This is great because it allows for quick detection of issues and allows developers to fix things, while the original code change is still fresh in their mind and not months later. The more testing, static analysis, security scanning etc can be done from CI, the more value we get from their use and the bigger our safety net is.
Software quality practices are methods and techniques that help you improve the quality of your software products and processes. You can use software quality practices to implement and enforce your system development decisions, by following best practices and standards. For example, you can use code reviews to ensure code quality and consistency, testing techniques to verify and validate your software functionality and performance, security practices to protect your software from threats and vulnerabilities, and user feedback methods to gather and respond to user needs and expectations.
Software quality improvement is the process of continuously monitoring, assessing, and enhancing the quality of your software products and processes. You can use software quality improvement to inform your system development decisions, by identifying and addressing quality issues and opportunities. For example, you can use software quality audits to evaluate your software quality against your quality requirements and standards, software quality reports to communicate your software quality status and progress, and software quality plans to define your software quality goals and actions.
Software quality benefits are the positive outcomes and impacts of achieving high-quality software products and processes. You can use software quality benefits to inform your system development decisions, by demonstrating the value and return on investment of your software quality efforts. For example, you can use software quality benefits to justify your software quality budget and resources, to motivate your software quality team and stakeholders, and to enhance your software quality reputation and competitiveness.