Software Project Metrices

DEFN: A software metric is a measure of some property of a piece of software or its specifications

Software metrics are numerical data related to software development. Metrics strongly support software project management activities. They relate to the four functions of management as follows:

1. Planning - Metrics serve as a basis of cost estimating, training planning, resource planning, scheduling, and budgeting.

2. Organizing - Size and schedule metrics influence a project's organization.

3. Controlling - Metrics are used to status and track software development activities for compliance to plans.

4. Improving - Metrics are used as a tool for process improvement and to identify where improvement efforts should be concentrated and measure the effects of process improvement efforts.

A metric quantifies a characteristic of a process or product. Metrics can be directly observable quantities or can be derived from one or more directly observable quantities. Examples of raw metrics include the number of source lines of code, number of documentation pages, number of staff-hours, number of tests, number of requirements, etc.

Common software metrics include:
1. Source lines of code
2. Cyclomatic complexity
3. Function point analysis
4. Bugs per line of code
5. Code coverage
6. Number of lines of customer requirements.
7. ber of classes and interfaces
8. Cohesion
9. COUPLING
10. Robert Cecil Martin's software package metrices