Web www.software-risk.co.uk

Tom Gilb and Dorothy Graham

Software Inspection is the reviewing technique devised by Michael Fagan in the early 1970s. Building on the Total Quality Mangagement work pioneered by Deming and Juran, it is rigorous, structured and very thorough.

Inspection is much more than a walkthrough or even a technical review. A whole set of roles are required, Inspection Leaders, Readers, Editors and Moderators. Additionally the process of Inspection requires adherence to a process of document checking, defect logging and editing.

Documents to be inspected have to pass a strict entry criteria before they can even begin to be inspected. The same applies for exit criteria.

However Inspection is not only about the accuracy of the document. There is often missed aspect of process improvement in how the document itself was produced.

Originally developed by IBM, its advocates claim that the number of software defects is dramatically reduced when Inspection is applied. Following on from this is the claim that it saves more money than it costs. This is due to the savings in finding the defects in Test or even by the customer, when it costs significantly more to fix.

This text explains the pitfalls to avoid and the essential elements of Inspection that are needed to make it work properly.

The book itself is written in a very easy conversational style. This makes what could be a very dry subject, interesting. Of particular interest are the case studies by such companies as IBM and Cray.

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Keywords

total quality management

juran

deming

test

fagan