Title: Overcoming obstacles to software defect prevention

Authors: Bing Huang; Zongquan Ma; Jinghui Li

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, South China Normal University, Shipai, 510631, Guangzhou, China ' Department of Computer Science, Beihang University, Beijing, China ' Huawei Technologies Co., Shenzhen, China

Abstract: Software defect prevention is an important way to reduce defect introduction rate and the costs of software development. However, it is normally only achievable for organisations which are elevating to or already at CMM level 5 under the existing framework. The conditions required to implement the existing approach are generally out of reach for organisations at low process maturity levels. The difficulties confronting organisations originated from the fact that the existing processes are largely dependent on the experts' experience. Root cause analysis is generally conducted using brainstorming, which is hard to be replicated by organisations that lack experience. A knowledge base of root cause modes is developed by structural analysis. Based on this, a knowledge system is developed to aid organisations with implementing defect prevention and help software developers improve their ability to prevent software defects. The application cases show that the system is quite easy to use and has advantages in identifying human errors and aiding small companies in implementing defect prevention.

Keywords: software faults; defect prevention; root cause; knowledge system; software defects; software development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2016.080290

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2016 Vol.24 No.4, pp.529 - 542

Received: 13 Oct 2014
Accepted: 31 Jan 2015
Published online: 11 Nov 2016 *

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