The ‘Complexity Map’
Introduction
An Executive Finger on the Contents of
the Business Development Pulse
v1.0

Drivers in the Marketplace
Organizations need to improve business performance and be more agile, yet at

the same time need to manage IT risk.
Managers realize a firmer grip on enterprise software assets is needed to

increase ‘project velocity’ and reduce these IT risks.
It’s hard to manage dozens of projects (also)

from a contents perspective.
Organizations and IT integrators often

employ a number of junior programmers,
which can challenge solution quality.
Organizations invest hugely in process

quality and maturity, which is nice and
important, but…
A finger on the contents and quality of the

business development pulse is also
necessary,… but currently lacking.
Slide 2

Buildup of Complexity in an Organization
organization
report
operational project(s)
-V-
processes
go live
-C-
-V-
-C-
R1.1 R2 R3
R1
Slide 3

Decisions are taken in Favour of the Deadline
Project-
Architect
Manager
Co
nte
nts
Pro
c ess
With each decision to cut a corner for the sake of the project’s
deadline, an amount ‘Technical Debt’ or ‘Accidental Complexity’
is added to the application and its environment.
Slide 4

Accidental Complexity is an Unwanted by-Product
of the Development of new Functionality
Accidental Complexity is defined as: The ‘Current Situation’ minus the ‘Ideal
Situation’
Accidental
Complexity
Desired
Functionality
Just as you need to manage the development of functionality, you also
need to manage the growth of accidental complexity.
Slide 5

Value Chain for Insight in Complexity
ComplexityLine
Chief
Development top 5 Δ’s per
application
Officer
aggregated architecture viewpoints 5
Application Architecture Complexity Visualizer
ComplexityMap  An aggregated view of Enterprise complexity
4  Experts can indicate complexity and risks
Enterprise
 Colorized view for easy single-glance reading
Application  Drop-down menu for different views
Architect(s)  functionality
 complexity
db
3
1 2
findings
static Trusted
enterprise
metrics expert Third
codebase dynamic eye Party
Slide 6

Layering in Architecture Visualized
• Where in our application codebase are we doing fine?
• Which areas of our application need attention?
Slide 7

Complexity Map Features
The (layered) visualization is generated from the

actual application code, not from documentation or
models
Enriched with code metrics and expert findings

Stored in database for historical analysis (planned)

Attractive zoomable interface

Currently supports Java/J2EE

Lean Java-codebase

Ready for rollout from July 2007

For more information,

contact Mark Hissink Muller at:
mark.hissink.muller@dnv.com
Slide 8

Slide 9