Software Characteristics

Software Characteristics Definition

This is what we refer to as our Heath Factors (Robustness, Performance, Security, Changeability, and Transferability) and Size. CAST AIP measures the 5 standardized CISQ Software Characteristics: Robustness, Security, Efficiency (CAST AIP Performance), Maintainability (CAST AIP Changeability & Transferability), and Size.

Defining Characteristics of Software & Application Health Factors

The factors used to improve application development bring visibility into what the teams are delivering, and into the health and future ability of your applications.

These health factors are:

The factors used to improve application development bring visibility into what the teams are delivering, and into the health and future ability of your applications.

Health factor	Description	Business Value
Transferability	Determines how easily a new team or team member can become productive when assigned to work on the application	Increase in transferability helps to prevent resource lock-in - Between internal resources - Between outsourcers Help in moving from the outsourcer to internal teams or from internal teams to the outsourcer
Changeability	Determines how easily and quickly an application can be modified	Increase in changeability will speed time-to-market providing the information needed to make deliveries more predictable
Robustness	Determines the risk of failures or defects that can result by changing an application	Increase in robustness will reduce risk of application failure or added defects when modifying an application
Performance	Determines the risk of performance issues of an application based on architectural designs	Increased performance ratings will reduce the risk of application performance issues once an application is deployed
Security	Determines the risk of security breaches for an application	Increased security ratings decrease the risk of security threats against the application
Maintainability Index	Determines the cost and difficulty/ease to maintain an application in the future	Increased maintainability index makes applications cheaper to maintain with more predictable results
Technical Size	Determines the technical size of the software as seen by its developers,its testers or its integrators (as opposed to its users). It is measured through Lines of Code, Number of Programs, Number of Forms, Number of Classes, Number of Function Points, Methods ...	Correlated with person-day information, and combined with other metrics, it is used not only to assess the amount of work produced by internal or outsourced teams but most importantly their productivity
Functional Weight	Determines the size of an application from the user stand-point. It estimates the number of “features” provided to the users. It is based on Lines of Code and/or on the application architecture related measures and application statistical metrics	This is yet another way to measure the productivity of an internal or outsourced team (combined with person-day information)