Reducing the Mean Time to Remove Faults Through Early Fault Detection, An Experiment in Independent Verification and Validation

Arthur, James D. and Gupta, Sanjay and Groener, Markus and Cannon, Martha and Khan, Zakia (1996) Reducing the Mean Time to Remove Faults Through Early Fault Detection, An Experiment in Independent Verification and Validation. Technical Report ncstrl.vatech_cs//TR-96-02, Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study investigating the extent to which Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) impacts early fault detection, and consequently, the mean time to remove faults. Two separate development groups, one with an IV&V team, are tasked to produce a software system from the same set of requirements. For each development phase, fault detection and removal data are recorded. An analysis of that data reveals that the group having the IV&V contingent: (a) detected errors earlier in the software development process, and (b) on the average, required substantially less time to remove those faults.