Using reading techniques to focus inspection performance

Abstract

Software inspection is a quality assurance method to detect defects early during the software development process. For inspection planning there are defect detection techniques, so-called reading techniques, which let the inspection planner focus the effectiveness of individual inspectors on specific sets of defects. For realistic planning it is important to use empirically evaluated defect detection techniques. We report on the replication of a large-scale experiment in an academic environment. The experiment evaluated the effectiveness of defect detection for inspectors who use a checklist or focused scenarios on individual and team level. A main finding of the experiments is that the teams were effective to find defects: In both experiments the inspection teams found on average more than 70% of the defects in the product. The checklist consistently was overall somewhat more effective on individual level, while the scenarios traded overall defect detection effectiveness for much better effectiveness regarding their target focus, in our case specific parts of the documents. Another main result of the study is that scenario-based reading techniques can be used in inspection planning to focus individual performance without significant loss of effectiveness on team level.