Defect Management Using Depth of Inspection and the Inspection Performance Metric

DI Inspection performance 0 0.1 Worse (W) 0.1 – 0.2 Very Low (VL) 0.2 – 0.3 Low (L) 0.3 – 0.4 Normal (N) 0.4 – 0.5 Above Normal (AN) 0.5 – 0.6 High (H) 0.6 – 0.7 Very High (AV) 0.7 – 0.8 Best (B) 0.8 – 0.9 Excellent (E) 0.9 1 Ideal (I) Introduction A defect in software is expensive especially when it dwells and manifests. One of the prevailing challenges in the software industry is therefore the production of defect-free software [1]. The continuance of IT enterprise, hence, depends upon the choice of apt defect management strategies in order to generate defect-free software. Quality control and quality assurance techniques are the two most successful defect management strategies. Quality control activity is for the product and quality assurance techniques are for the process. The current trends in the industry concentrate on testing, which is a quality control activity. However, what matters is the process through which a product is developed, and therefore excellence in the process plays a vital role towards delivery of high quality products. Among several techniques applied for quality assurance in the software field, like walkthrough, inspection, and review, inspection is one of the promising techniques for defect management. Despite its perceptible significance, inspection is either very casually treated or more often overlooked and many times it is maintained only for accounting purposes. One of the rationales being projected to escape the vital process step is identifying it as a mind-numbing, lengthy activity rather than a quality improvement process. Since quality is a quantifiable unit, this article aims to draw the attention of the software community including management, developing teams, stakeholders, and outsourcing agents to an important aspect of bringing in a cultural change. It is worth Abstract. Advancement in fundamental engineering aspects of software development enables IT enterprises to develop a more cost effective and better quality product through aptly organized defect management strategies. Inspection continues to be the most effective and efficient technique of defect management. To have an appropriate measurement of the inspection process, the process metric, Depth of Inspection (DI) and the people metric, Inspection Performance Metric (IPM) are introduced. The introduction of these pair of metrics can yield valuable information from a company in relation to the inspection process. Defect Management Using Depth of Inspection and the Inspection Performance Metric