Experience Package from the ESSI Process Improvement Experiment HYPER

The development of high quality software satisfying cost, schedule, and resource requirements is an essential prerequisite for improved competitiveness of life insurance companies. One major difficulty to master this challenge is the inevitability of defects in software products. Since defects are known to be significantly more expensive if detected in later development phases or testing, companies in this marketplace must use cost-effective technologies to detect defects early on in the development process. A particular promising one is software inspection. This report describes the results of the ESPRIT/ESSI Process Improvement Experiment "High Quality of Software Products by Early Use of Innovative Reading Techniques (HYPER)". The core of this project has been the transfer of innovative software inspection technologies to the Allianz EURO conversion projects. The innovation in the area of software inspection is based on a systematic reading technique, that is, Perspective-based reading (PBR), that tells inspection participants what to look for and - more important - how to scrutinize a software artifact for defects. The report packages the experience regarding the application of PBR inspections on requirements and design documents in the ESSI PIE. The experience consists of results from the measurement program and lessons learned both with respect to inspections and their accompanying measurement program.