The impact of EMS support on inspections; description of an experiment

Fagan inspections are a structured review of development documents that consists of individual preparation, a meeting and rework by the author of the document industrial experience shows that the inspection meeting can be improved by EMS support. The industrial results generate many research questions, relevant for both the EMS and the software engineering community. This paper outlines an experiment with 30 students that aimed to gain insight into the impact of EMS support on the inspection yield. One conclusion is that the results show no improved yield for the EMS supported inspections. The differences between the individuals were much larger than the difference caused by the tools used in the meeting. This can be explained by the fact that the participants were students performing their first inspection. Another conclusion is that the `paper´ inspection created a greater sense of achievement than the EMS inspection, despite the fact the results of both groups were alike