Software Architecture: 8 Crucial Software Architecture KPIs!

[UPDATED in 2021]
Are your systems build for change?
Are you measuring technical debt?
Are you suffering from low developer productivity?
Did you know that secure software follows software quality?

If you can not answer these questions, this course is made for you! Within one hour you will understand the most important software quality concepts essential for software architects. This knowledge is essential for software quality assurance.

Can you explain this without showing code?
Yes. The software quality concepts are technology independent and are explained by making use of analogies. This course will provide you with the essential software engineering best practices to measure and thus improve software quality. 

So, after following this course I'll become a senior software developer / software quality assurance tester?  
No, not quite. If you were a senior software / DevOps engineer you should probably already know these quality concepts.

Why should I enroll?
Only enroll when you are new to software quality and want a complete beginners’ perspective. This course is specifically developed for:

- Product owners / project managers / software managers / software architects / quality assurance managers that build software systems, but have no clue how software engineers could write high quality code. This course provides you with software health metrics; 
- You want to implement software quality by design and default. If you are a DevOps engineer, working with or managing DevOps engineers make sure you / they automate these 8 KPI's into their CI/CD pipeline to ensure code quality by design and default;
- The software metrics are technology independent. This means that it does not matter whether you write Python, C#, C++, Ruby, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Visual Basic, R, PHP, Cobol, Prolog, Go, Swift, Kotlin, Scala, Haskell or Ada. They are independent because the metric measure the programming language's characteristics. For instance, for almost all technologies you can measure the 'Lines of code'.
- Contract managers. If you manage large contracts that contain software development, this course is will help you solidify your technical requirements in 8 key software metrics that need to be monitored and acted upon.
- Recruiters hiring software engineers;
- DevOps engineers and software testers that want to refresh their knowledge about software quality;
- CxO's which means Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Data Officer. Board members are getting increasingly involved with the success / failure of their IT landscape. These metrics will help them to understand and govern IT-challenges on a conceptual level;
- Anyone interested in the basics of software quality, explained in layman’s terms;
- Knowing these concepts may even increase your chance on a job as software engineer or may even increase your salary!

Learn about controlling and monitoring software quality through an analogy (which aids understanding no matter your background):
Consider the job of a general practitioner (GP). That person needs to know a bit every about the human body. The human body can also be compared to a system with inputs (e.g. eating), processing (e.g. functioning of heart) and outputs (sweat). To assess the health of a human system the GP uses general key performance indicators (KPI's), such as: heartbeat and temperature. These KPI's enable the GP to quickly determine whether and what kind of follow up action is necessary. After following this course you'll understand the KPI's that can assess a software system. It goes without saying that this example is a gross simplification of reality.
Please don't be deluded that the software quality is easy and simple to attain. It is not, however learning the most important concepts of software quality should not be hard. Learning and thus uncovering your blind spots is the first step in attaining high software quality. 

Ok, that's clear! My time is limited, what’s in it for me?
I thought you would never ask! Within 1,5 hour this course explains how you can assess 8 software quality metrics that enable software project success. Benefits include: 
- Easily explanation of complex software metrics in layman's terms. Existing documentation on software quality is technical and therefore difficult to comprehend (I have included some concrete examples as a resources that you may want to read for more in-depth knowledge. Please note these documents are technical.).
- Unlike most other courses, wait...there are no other courses on software quality!!
- Secure software is often dependent upon code quality; thus invest in yourself by learning these concepts;
- Unlike most other courses, you may actually claim 1 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) after finishing this course completely;
- I've included lots of (technical) documents that explain software quality in more detail. Please note that these documents contain code and are therefore more suited for DevOps engineers.  
- That's not it, there is more...   

BONUS Material:
- Additional reading for managers;
- Additional reading for developers (books that provide your developers with a deep-dive into software engineering best practices). They will thank you for recommending these books;
- Overview of software quality tools for software testing, quality assurance and /or performance testing.

Why include bonus material, is the main course not exciting enough?
Again, excellent question! Getting software right goes well beyond what I can teach in one hour. With the bonus material, I would like to inform you about the complementary knowledge and measures that should be taken into account.

I’m fully convinced of the benefits, but I don’t see why I should learn all this from you.
True, let me explain by giving you an overview of my experience:
- Chief Information Security Officer (present). Managing a team of Security, Privacy and Quality professionals. Responsible for implementing and maintaining a well balanced organisational risk posture;
- Security and privacy operations manager (2 years). Acting as a security liaison on strategic accounts, I monitor the security of 2500+ workstations, 500+ servers and 10+ firewalls and routers, report on the operational security status of European and Dutch law and integrate intelligence results from AVDS, Check Point, Nagios, Nessus, Palo Alto Traps, SCCM, SCEP, SEP, SCOM and SIEM;
- Parttime PhD Candidate (7 years - present). I read the science, you'll get the knowledge! What more do you want? 
- Software quality consultant (6,5 years). I've advised many managers of large / small IT projects on various software related aspects; 
- IT auditor (1 year). I have closely worked with accountants and audited large governmental IT projects; 
- Quality assurance engineer (3 years). I have implemented large IT systems for large companies. 

You can find more details on LinkedIn on or my profile.

Go ahead and click the enroll button, and I'll see you in lesson 1!

Cheers,
Soerin