Setting and using Sigrid Objectives

Objectives help you set direction and compare them with the current state

Objectives are targets that can be set in Sigrid, to compare against system status and quality trends. In this context, objectives are understood as being non-functional requirements. They are considered separate from metadata (see metadata page), since Objectives do not describe characteristics of systems themselves, but where you want them to be.

Objectives can be set per different quality characteristics and levels of detail. Examples are: a range of desired Maintainability, desired New code quality, minimum Test code ratio, or the maximum number of Medium risk vulnerabilities in libraries (Open Source Health).

Setting Objectives

You can set Objectives by using the settings gear button, in the menu under Objectives.

They can be set as such:

Comparing status and objectives in the System Overview page

When set, the status of a system against its goals is shown in the System Overview tab, as shown below.

Objectives show the evolution of the system quality over time. Thereby they are useful for roles such as Enterprise Architects to see where technical debt is moving. It also has a signaling function to make explicit what goals teams should be working towards, and therefore, how the portfolio ought to be moving. This is, of course, only meaningful if these targets/thresholds have been agreed upon beforehand with teams/Product Owners/Development managers, etc.

Understanding Objectives in detail: System Overview page

Objectives can be set as below in the System Overview page:

The different columns mean the following:

  1. Status column (1): The Status tells you whether the target for an objective is being met in the currently analyzed snapshot. The green checkmark shows that the test code ratio is at least 50%.
  2. Capability column (2): A Capability can be understood as a desirable code quality characteristic where an objective falls into.
  3. Target column (3): The Target is the desired measurable value of the objective. It is important to revisit this periodically, because targets will likely vary over time. A likely cause for a target change is the system’s Lifecycle. Similarly, Business criticality typically also is a determinant.
  4. Delta column (4): The delta on the image above now shows an “=” sign, but it could also show an upwards arrow or a downwards arrow. This shows the difference with the previously analyzed snapshot.