Category: Risk & Security

In my last post we discussed the complimentary nature of remediation cost and risk level assessment. As a follow up, I wanted to dwell on the objective risk level assessment. Is it even possible? If not, how close to it can we get? How valuable is an estimation of the risk level? Could it be the Holy Grail of software analysis and measurement? Or is it even worth the effort?

I’ve been asked time and again how CAST is different from performance engineering. And here’s my answer: The CAST discipline of software analysis and measurement versus performance engineering couldn’t be more different. And I’ll explain why and how in a moment. But along with that, it should be noted that they also are like peanut butter and chocolate -- they can go very well together.

Risk detection is about identifying any threat that can negatively and severely impact the behavior of applications in operations, as well as the application maintenance and development activity. Then, risk assessment is about conveying the result of the detection through easy-to-grasp pieces of information. Part of this activity is about highlighting what it is you’re seeing while summarizing a plethora of information. But as soon as we utter the word "summarizing," we risk losing some important context.

Any advocate for better software quality knows that one of the biggest challenges is helping the CIO reach the CFO. When your team needs a budget for an important project, those conversations often break down. Thanks to the unavoidable technical complexity of IT, oftentimes the CIO might as well be speaking Esperanto to the CFO.

Over the past 10 years or so, it has been interesting to watch the metaphor of Technical Debt grow and evolve.  Like most topics or issues in software development, there aren’t many concepts or practices that are fully embraced by the industry without some debate or controversy.  Regardless of your personal thoughts on the topic, you must admit that the concept of Technical Debt seems to resonate strongly outside of development teams and has fueled the imagination of others to expound on the concept and include additional areas such as design debt or other metaphors.  There are now a spate of resources dedicated to the topic including the industry aggregation site:

Every year, Senator Tom Coburn compiles the Wastebook – A Guide to Some of the Most Wasteful and Low Priority Government Spending of 2011.