L.P.W. Land, G. Low (Australia), and O.S. Chan (PRC)
Code inspection, time pressure, verification and validation
Software inspection is widely accepted as an effective technique for improving the quality of software. A typical inspection includes two stages: individual preparation followed by a group review with roles assigned to each reviewer. Inspection performance is usually measured in terms of the number of defects found in the software artifact. In the software industry, software developers are constrained by real world constraints, of which time pressure would be one of the main factors. One key feature of defect detection is that the group meeting duration is usually two hours. There is little or no empirical evidence to show that this duration is optimal. In the case where extra time pressure is applied to this recommended meeting duration, it is unknown whether inspection performance will be affected. Our objective for this paper is therefore to pilot a study to determine whether time pressure applied to the 2nd stage of defect detection inspection meeting will impact the overall inspection performance. This work has implications on the organization and conducts of inspection meetings, and should therefore be of interest to both practitioners and researchers. Its main limitations are the use of student subjects and the small sample size. Therefore, we should interpret the results with extreme caution. Initial results show the potential of maintaining inspection performance despite applying time pressure on inspection meetings.
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