Inspection and Test Process Integration Based on Explicit Test Prioritization Strategies
This addresses the issue of inefficient quality assurance processes in software development, but it is incremental as it builds on existing integration concepts with preliminary findings.
The paper tackles the problem of isolated software quality assurance techniques by proposing an integrated inspection and testing approach, with preliminary case study results indicating potential synergies and a trend that testing activities could be guided based on inspection results.
Today's software quality assurance techniques are often applied in isolation. Consequently, synergies resulting from systematically integrating different quality assurance activities are often not exploited. Such combinations promise benefits, such as a reduction in quality assurance effort or higher defect detection rates. The integration of inspection and testing, for instance, can be used to guide testing activities. For example, testing activities can be focused on defect-prone parts based upon inspection results. Existing approaches for predicting defect-prone parts do not make systematic use of the results from inspections. This article gives an overview of an integrated inspection and testing approach, and presents a preliminary case study aiming at verifying a study design for evaluating the approach. First results from this preliminary case study indicate that synergies resulting from the integration of inspection and testing might exist, and show a trend that testing activities could be guided based on inspection results.