IBM®
Skip to main content
    Country/region [change]    Terms of use
 
 
 
    Home    Products    Services & solutions    Support & downloads    My account    

IBM Technical Journals
Special report: Celebrating 50 years of the IBM Journals
All topics > Software >

Design and code inspections to reduce errors in program development

 Award plaque by M. E. Fagan

Substantial net improvements in programming quality and productivity have been obtained through the use of formal inspections of design and of code. Improvements are made possible by a systematic and efficient design and code verification process, with well-defined roles for inspection participants. The manner in which inspection data is categorized and made suitable for process analysis is an important factor in attaining the improvements. It is shown that by using inspection results, a mechanism for initial error reduction followed by ever-improving error rates can be achieved.

Originally published:

IBM Systems Journal, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 182-211 (1976).

Significance:

Michael Fagan's paper introduced the idea of formal design and code inspections and demonstrated that this approach can produce significant improvements in program quality and programmer productivity. Inspection teams of four or five people with well-defined roles perform a systematic design and code verification process. Error data is classified by type, and then frequency of occurrence statistics are used to hone the inspection process in order to improve its efficiency.

The design and code inspections pioneered by IBM in the 1970s have evolved into modern software inspections, a disciplined engineering practice for detecting and correcting defects in software artifacts. Whereas software inspections originated in new software development, the technique has been extended, and its value throughout the software development life cycle is now well-established. Standardized quality processes such as ISO 9000 and Six Sigma, all have the practice of software inspections in common.

Comments:


    About IBM    Privacy    Contact