An industrial case study to examine a non-traditional inspection implementation for requirements specifications

Software inspection is one of the key enablers for quality improvement and defect cost reduction. Although its benefits are shown in many studies, a major obstacle to implement and use inspection technologies in software projects is the costs associated with it. Companies therefore constantly ask for the most cost-effective inspection implementation. Answering this question requires a discussion about the design of the inspection process as well as the question of how the selected process activities are to be performed. As a consequence, the tailored process and activities often result in an inspection implementation that perfectly fits into a project or environment but is different to the traditional ones presented in the existing inspection literature. We present and examine a non-traditional inspection implementation at DaimlerChrysler AG. The design of this inspection approach evolved over time as part of a continuous improvement effort and therefore integrates specific issues of the project environment as well as recent research findings. In addition to the description of the inspection approach, the paper presents quantitative results to characterize the suggested inspection implementation and investigates some of the essential hypotheses in the inspection area. Both, the technical description as well as its quantitative underpinning serves as an example for other companies that pursue improvement or adaptation efforts in the software inspection area.