Estimating the Number of Defects: A Simple and Intuitive Approach
Michael Naixin Li, Yashwant K. Malaiya · 1998
The number of defects is an important measure of software quality which is widely used in industry. Unfortunately, accurate estimation of defect density can be a difficult task. Sampling techniques generally assume that the faults found are a representative sample of the all existing faults, which results in inaccurate estimates. Other existing techniques provide little information in addition to the number of faults already found. Software test coverage tools can easily and accurately measure the extent to which the software has been exercised. Both testing time and test coverage can be used as measures to model the defect finding process. However test coverage is a more direct measure of test effectiveness and can be expected to correlate better with the number of defects found. Here we describe a simple and intuitive procedure which can be used to estimate the total number of residual defects, once a suitable coverage level has been achieved. The technique is consistent with commo...