System dynamics model for simulation of the software inspection process

  • Authors:

  • Jailton Jr. De Sousa Coelho;José Luis Braga;Bernardo Giori Ambrósio

  • Affiliations:

  • Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa -- MG, Brasil;Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa -- MG, Brasil;Departamento de Ciências Exatas e Aplicadas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, João Monlevade -- MG, Brasil

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Repairing a defect in the late phases of software development can be a hundred times more expensive than finding and fixing it during the requirements and design phase. Software inspection is a technique that may be used to aid in the identification of defects during early stages of the process and avoid propagation of such defects to later phases. The cost-benefit of inspections may be significant if they are efficiently performed. Since this process is affected by several quality factors, the analysis of the overall context of inspection may become complex. Project managers are reluctant to introduce inspection due to uncertainty regarding its real benefits. This paper presents a system dynamics model, which is a descriptive technique for systems modeling and simulation and involves several variables that strongly influence inspection efficiency. The influence levels of model variables are quantified based on real or empirical experiments reported in the literature, in order to approximate model results to values that would be obtained in the real world. The model allows the reproduction of scenarios without paying the costs and facing the risks of a real project implementation. Therefore, it enables the analysis of inspection effects on the software development process.