A CASE-STUDY OF SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT DURING DEVELOPMENT

We present a case study of the use of a software process improvement m ethod which is based on the analysis of defect data. The first step of the method is the classification of software defects using attributes which relate defects to specific process activities. Such classificat ion captures the semantics of the defects in a fashion which is useful for process correction. The second step utilizes a machine-assisted a pproach to data exploration which allows a project team to discover su ch knowledge from defect data as is useful for process correction. We show that such analysis of defect data can readily lead a project team to improve their process during development.