A summary of my Master's thesis "Software Defect Analysis: An Empirical Study of Causes and Costs in the Information Technology Industry" which were supervised by professor Reidar Conradi and co-supervised by post.doc. Jingyue Li. http://daim.idi.ntnu.no/masteroppgave?id=5580

2. THE TASK
Analysis of defect reports, evaluation of
implemented ODC classification scheme, and
suggest areas for improvement.
Problem: 20% of the defect reports takes 80% of
the available resources.
EVISOFT-project: Evidence based Software
Process Improvement
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3. COMPANY A RESULTS
40
35
30
25
20
15 Core
10 B2C
5 B2B
0
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4. PROJECT PROFILES (EXTENSIVE EFFORT)
Core is low level, algorithms, design phase and
high risk of regressions.
B2C is high level, algorithms, functions, classes
and objects, design phase.
B2B assignation and initialisation,code phase.
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5. PROJECT PROFILES (LITTLE EFFORT)
Core: Assignation and intialisation, function classes and
objects, code phase, and low regression risk
B2C: checking statements, code phase and low
regression risk.
B2B: checking statements and interfaces, requirements
phase.
In general: High level of unspecified values
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6. COMPARISON VERSUS ANOTHER COMPANY
Different reasons for both extensive and little
effort to correct defects
Extensive effort: Logical errors in code
Little effort: UI defects,
In general: domain knowledge
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7. FACTORS
Size of the system
Complexity of the system
The phase a defect is discovered
The maintainers’ experience with the system
and the domain
Tools and processes
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8. SOURCES
Jan Maximilian Winther Kristiansen «Software Defect Analysis - An Empirical
Study of Causes and Costs in the Information Technology Industry»
(http://www.idi.ntnu.no/grupper/su/su-diploma-2010/dipl10-
janmaxim.pdf)
Jan Maximilian Winther Kristiansen, Jingyue Li, Tor Stålhane and Reidar
Conradi «Cost Drivers of Software Corrective Maintenance: An Empirical
Study in Two Companies» ,In proceedings of ICSM ’10: International
Conference on Software Maintenance
Jingyue Li, Jan Maximilian Winther Kristiansen, Tor Stålhane and Reidar
Conradi «Enhancing Software Defect Tracking System to Facilitate
Continuous Software Quality Assessment and Improvement», Submitted
to IEEE Software journal for review.
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