Phased Inspections and Their Implementation

Abstract

Since the 1970s, non-mechanical review methods have become very popular as verification tools for software products. Examples of existing review methods are formal reviews, walkthroughs, and inspections. Another example is Fagan Inspections, developed in 1976 by Michael Fagan in an effort to improve software quality and increase programmer pro» ductivity. Fagan Inspections and other existing methods have been empirically shown to benefit the software development process, mainly by lowering the number of defects in software early in the development process. Despite this success, existing methods are limited. They are not rigorous, therefore, they are not dependable. A product that has been reviewed with an existing method has no quantitative qualities that are ensured by the method used. This thesis presents a new review method, Phased Inspection, that was developed to be rigorous, reliable, tailorable, heavily computer supported, and cost effective. Phased Inspection consists of a series of partial inspections termed phases. Each phase is intended to ensure a single or small set of related properties. Phases are designed to be as rigorous as possible so that compliance with associated properties is ensured, at least informally, with a high degree of confidence. A detailed description of Phased Inspection, an evaluation framework and preliminary evaluation, and a prototype toolset for support of Phased Inspection is presented. Note: Abstract extracted from PDF file via OCR