Analysis of review´s effectiveness based on software metrics

The paper statistically analyzes the relationship between review and software quality and the relationship between review and productivity, utilizing software metrics on 36 actual projects executed in the OMRON Corporation from 1992 to 1994. Firstly, by examining the relationship between review effort and field quality (the number of faults after delivery) of each project, and the relationship between the number of faults detected in review and field quality of each project, we reasoned that: (1) greater review effort helps to increase field quality (decrease the number of faults after delivery); (2) source code review is more effective in order to increase field quality than design review; (3) if more than 10% of total design and programming effort is spent on review, one can achieve a quite stable field quality. We noticed that no relevant effects were recognized in productivity (LOC/staff month) with respect to a review rate of up to 20%. As a result of the analysis above, we recommended that 15% of review effort is a suitable percentage to use as a guideline for our software project management