Software Inspection
Software inspection is a well-known method of cost-effectively verifying documents,
first described by Michael Fagan in 1976. The benefits of inspection are generally
accepted, with success stories regularly published. In addition to Fagan's papers
describing his experiences, there are many other favorable reports. For example,
Doolan reports a 30 times return on investment for every hour devoted to inspection.
Russell reports a similar return of 33 hours of maintenance saved for every
hour of inspection invested. These benefits are derived from applying inspection
early in the lifecycle. By inspecting products as early as possible, major defects
will be caught sooner and will not be propagated through to the final product,
where the cost of removal is far greater.
Much of the current (and future) work (in software inspections) focuses on
supporting the inspector to handle the ever increasing complexity of software systems