A pattern approach to software inspection process improvement
Lasse Harjumaa · Software Process Improvement and Practice · 2005
Abstract Concrete guidelines are often helpful when planning software process improvement. Small companies, in particular, need detailed and unambiguous instructions detailing what process areas to improve, and how to achieve the improvement. This article introduces a set of patterns to direct the improvement of the software inspection process. The pattern approach has been applied, since it has been used very successfully for knowledge‐sharing purposes and other areas of software engineering. The approach involves an evaluation of the inspection process capability, setting an overall goal for the improvement and updating the process according to pre‐defined actions. Experiments with initial patterns show that the method provides a feasible and quick way of making inspections more effective. Using patterns may also be beneficial when launching more wide‐ranging SPI activities, as companies can run preliminary trials of the improvement process on a smaller scale first. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.