Inspection Activities - Operation Analysis - Process Improvement
Basic Practices for Inspection Improvements
Paper "Looking for inspection improvements through base practices" by Ilkka Tervonen, Juha Iisakka and Lasse Harjumaa
1. INTRODUCTION
For inspection process improvement, updating of checklists, implementation of new forms and the definition of new metrics for measurement data are being attempted. Improvement measures that are most relevant to the inspection process in the testing area are available in the Testing Maturity Model (TMM) [1], Testability Maturity Model [4] and Test Process Improvement Model (TPI) [10].
A new capability model tailored especially to inspection process evaluation and the search for relevant improvement suggestions is proposed in this paper.
Inspection in software field is traditionally defined in terms of steps such as entry, planning, kickoff meeting, individual inspection, logging (inspection) meeting, edit, follow up, exit and release [3],[6].
There are six defined goals in inspection process.
(1) to identify defects in an artefact,
(2) to estimate the quality of an artefact,
(3) to improve product quality,
(4) to provide data for software development process improvement,
(5) to provide the means for knowledge transfer, and
(6) to improve the effectiveness of the software development process.
The suggested practices are classified into three sets.
1): supporting activities, which help in carrying out an instance of the inspection process, the core set of activities which are the essence of the inspection process implementation, and organisational activities, which ensure continuous improvement and efficient organisation of the inspection process.
The supporting activities are
- "Support with computer tools",
- "Maintain rules and checklists" and
- "Refine information”.
- The core set of practices include the activities
- "Check the preconditions for inspection",
- "Plan the inspection",
- "Find issues in the artefact",
- "Categorise defects",
- "Make corrections" and
- "Conclude the inspection".
The organisational set consists of the rest of the activities
- "Organise the inspection",
- Train the participants" and
- "Establish and improve the inspection process".
The practices of the inspection process
- Categorise defects
- Make corrections
- Find issues in the artefact
- Plan the inspection
- Check preconditions for inspection
- Maintain rules and checklists
- Refine information
- Support with computer tools
- Organise the inspection
- Establish
Checklists, for example, are characterised as follows:
- checklists are tools to be used by inspectors; lists of topics which should be checked in a specific
artefact
- checklists are derived from rules
- checklists should be tailored to specific baselines and roles, for example
- checklists should be up to date
- focus on the discovery of major defects
SOME GENERAL SUGGESTIONS FOR INSPECTION IMPROVEMENTS
Researchers in the field of software inspection have been discussing the requirements for a reorganised inspection process [7], [9], focusing especially on reducing the number of logging meetings. In a previous paper [7] some new ways to organise an inspection meeting are presented.
There are some general suggestions for improvements presented in the area of software inspection.
Gilb [5], for example, introduces 24 key tips for improving the inspection process, and classifies them into eight groups: inspection strategy, entry conditions, planning, individual checking, the logging meeting, process brainstorming, exit conditions and inspection statistics.
Some of the key tips
Inspection strategy
* Make sure there are adequate standards for identifying defective practices.
*Give the inspection team leaders proper training, coaching after the initial training, formal certification and statistical follow-up, and be prepared to withdraw their licence to inspect if necessary.
Planning phase
* Plan inspections well, using a master plan.
* Plan inspections to address the relevant purposes.
* Inspect early and often, while documents are still being written.
* Use sampling to understand the quality level of the document.
* Check against source and kin documents; check these for defects, too.
* Check significant portions of the material - avoid checking commentary.
* Allocate special defect-searching roles to people in the team.
Inspection statistics
* Build or buy an automated software tool to process basic inspection data.
* Measure the benefits gained from using inspections.
References
[1] Burnstein I., et al., A Testing Maturity Model for Software Test Process Assessment and improvement, Software Quality Professional, vol 1, no 4, 1999
[2] Emam K., El J., Drouin J., Melo W., SPICE: The Theory and Practice of Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination, IEEE Computer Society, 1998
[3] Fagan M.E., Design and Code Inspection to Reduce Errors in Program Development, IBM Systems Journal, vol 15, no 3, 1976, pp.182-211
[4] Gelperin, D., and Hayashi A., How to support better software testing, Application Trends, May, 1996, pp. 42-48.
[5] Gilb T., Planning to get the most out of inspections, Software Quality Professional, vol 2, no 2, 2000
[6] Gilb T., and Graham D.: Software Inspection, Addison-Wesley, Wokingham, England, 1993
[7] Iisakka J., and Tervonen I., Painless Improvements to the Review Process, Software Quality Journal, 7, 1998, pp. 11-20
[8] i3GO, The URL of the Improved Inspection Initiative Group in Oulu is http://www.tol.oulu.fi/i3/
[9] Johnson P.M., Reengineering Inspection, Communications of the ACM, vol 41, no 2, 1998, pp. 49-52
[10] Koomen, T., and Pol M., Test Process Improvement: A practical step-by-step guide to structured testing, AddisonWesley, 1999
[11] Kuvaja P. et al., Software Process Assessment and Improvement, The Bootstrap Approach, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994
[12] Paulk M. et al., The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines for Improving the Software Process, Addison-Wesley, 1995
Looking for inspection improvements through base practices by Ilkka Tervonen, Juha Iisakka and Lasse Harjumaa
Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FIN-90014 University of Oulu, Finland
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A tailored capability model for inspection process improvement
I. Tervonen; J. Iisakka; L. Harjumaa
Abstract:
Software inspection is recognised as the most effective means of finding defects. In spite of its important role in software development, existing capability models have not addressed inspection issues or looked for inspection-related improvement activities to a sufficient extent. The inspection-tailored capability model presented provides a method for evaluating inspection process capability and supports the location of weak points in a company's inspection process. The first experiments reported are promising, and the evaluation process discovered correctly focused improvement ideas which were also agreed on by the company concerned.
Published in: Proceedings Second Asia-Pacific Conference on Quality Software, Hong Kong, China
Date of Conference: 10-11 Dec. 2001
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 07 August 2002
DOI: 10.1109/APAQS.2001.990030
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/990030/citations#citations
1.L. Harjumaa, I. Tervonen, P. Vuorio, "Improving software inspection process with patterns", Quality Software 2004. QSIC 2004. Proceedings. Fourth International Conference on, pp. 118-125, 2004.
2.Lasse Harjumaa, Ilkka Tervonen, Sirpa Salmela, "Steering the inspection process with prescriptive metrics and process patterns", Quality Software 2008. QSIC '08. The Eighth International Conference on, pp. 285-293, 2008.
3.Lasse Harjumaa, Ilkka Tervonen, Pekka Vuorio, Product Focused Software Process Improvement, vol. 3009, pp. 62, 2004.
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