An empirical analysis of software volatility and related factors

Despite the belief that software enhancements must be designed into software applications, there is only little research that has rigorously investigated the relationships that exist between software characteristics and software volatility. The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship of software characteristics with software volatility and its theoretical model is based on two models for software volatility. In this study, software volatility refers to the frequency of enhancements per application. A survey of critical software applications used at a major integrated oil company was used to test the hypotheses. Findings indicate that complexity, software age, and program size are significant predicators for software volatility. These findings could assist companies in their decision process about choosing between maintaining existing software or replacing it, often at substantial financial cost.