Management must be committed to following a written policy for defect prevention at both the organization and project level. Figure 1 clearly depicts that identifying defects late in the game is costly.įigure 3: Filter or Whirlpool Diagram for Software Defects Features of Defect Prevention

This process is enhanced when DP methodologies are implemented to improve quality and productivity and reduce development costs. Mature IT organizations have an established software process to carry out their responsibilities. In general, DP activities are a mechanism for propagating the knowledge of lessons learned between projects. DP, identified by the Software Engineering Institute as a level 5 Key Process Area (KPA) in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), involves analyzing defects encountered in the past and specifying checkpoints and actions to prevent the occurrence of similar defects in the future. It is the essence of total quality management (TQM). Defect PreventionĭP is a strategy applied to the software development life cycle that identifies root causes of defects and prevents them from recurring. Specifically, how implementing a model-based strategy to reduce requirement defects, development rework and manual test development efforts will lead to significant achievements in cost reduction and total productivity. This article will present various tools and techniques for use in creating a defect prevention (DP) strategy that, when introduced at all stages of a software life cycle, can reduce the time and resources necessary to develop high quality systems. Identifying and correcting process defects will prevent many product defects from recurring. Most defects are caused by process failures rather than human failures. Occurrence of defects is the greatest contributor to significant increases in product costs due to correction and rework time. The challenge in any software product development lies in minimizing the number of defects. Organizations face many problems that impede rapid development of software systems critical to their operations and growth.

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