Architectural Quality and Consistency: Rules Rule

To maintain architectural quality and consistency at macro (architectural) and micro (implementation) level it is necessary to follow certain rules across the life cycle of any software project and product. From easy enforcement, it is recommended to use automated tool set.

There are three types of rules:

1. Enforced: Must be followed in all cases.
2. Advisable: Should be followed and exception must be documented with reasoning.
3. Guidelines: These are the best practices and recommended to be followed in given context. Exceptions must be documented.

To match with SDLC of any software project, rules are also classified as:

1. Architectural and Design Rules: These rules affect larger part of system and define the resulting product. They form the core of the product.
2. Construction Rules: These rules are applied at micro level, programming aspect of product/application
3. Environmental Rules: These rule define construction environment of product/application
4. Test Rules: These rules affect testing (Quality Control as well as Quality Assurance) at all levels – review of artifacts, unit testing, integration testing, functional testing, user acceptance testing, stress (load) testing, etc.
5. Deployment Rules: These rules affect deployment environment of product/application

For quantitative analysis of architectural quality and consistency, matrices must be identified with respect to each rule. To covey weight of each rule in architectural quality, a weightage should be provided to each metric and the preferable a radar chart should be prepared.

To further enhance the matrices, bugs can be classified as

1. Missing functionality
2. Correctness
a. Absolutely
b. Probably
c. Suggestion
3. Rule Violation
a. Enforced
b. Advisable
c. Guideline
4. Confusing or tricky or non-intuitive