Code Health
This guideline describes how to calculate code health and use this metric to plan an iteration, as well as assess the adoption of Iterative Development practice.
Main Description

Overview

Code Health shows the information about health of a build in an iteration. It measures the intervals in unit of time that you have a failed build and the intervals in unit of time that you have a clean build. Iterative development recommends incrementally building working software. As a result, the build should not stay failed for long, especially at the end of the iteration. Another important information to measure in this metric is the number of total tests that are used for testing the build.

Measurement Method

Number of Tests = Total number of tests in a test suit at a given time

Clean Build Range = Interval of time that the build remains clean

Failed Build Range = Interval of time that the build remains failed

Measurement Analysis

A good way to monitor iteration code health over time is to plot the chart. The following picture is an example of build health chart.

Build Health Report

The green area shows the time when the health stays clean, whereas the red area shows the time when the build failed. Watch for long periods of failed builds. Long period of failure indicates that there may be serious problems in need of attention.