 Verification is the process of manually examining

/reviewing a document.
 The document may be SRS, SDD, the program itself
or any document prepared during any phase of
software development (SDLC).
 We may call this as static testing because the
execution of the program is not required.
 As per IEEE, “ verification is the process of
evaluating the system or component to determine
whether the products of a given development phase
satisfies the conditions imposed at the start of that
phase”

2
 The objective of any verification method is to review
the documents with the purpose of finding faults.
 It helps in prevention of potential faults, which may
lead to failure of software.
 There are three commonly used methods that are as
follows:
i. Peer Reviews
ii. Walkthroughs
iii. Inspection

3
 In peer review we give the document(s)/program(s) to
some one else (1 or 2 persons) and ask to review the
document(s)/program(s). We expect views about the
quality of the document(s) and also expect faults.
 This type of informal activity may give very good
results without spending any significant resources.
Our thrust should be find faults in the
documents(s)/program(s) and not in the persons who
have developed them.
 The reviewer may prepare a report of observations
and findings or may inform verbally during
discussions.
 This is an informal activity to be carried out by
peers and may be very effective if reviewers have
domain knowledge, good programming skills and
proper involvement. 4
 Walkthroughs are more formal and systematic than
peer reviews.
 In walkthrough, the author of document (presenter)
presents the document to small group of two to
seven persons.
 Participants are not expected to prepare anything.
Only the presenter, who is author, prepares for the
meeting. The document(s) is/are distributed to all
participants. During the meeting, the author
introduces the material in order to make them familiar
with it.
 All participants are free to ask questions. All
participants may write their observations on any
display mechanism like boards, sheets, projection
systems etc. so that every one may see and give
reviews. 5
 After review, the author writes a report about findings
and any faults point out in the meeting.
 The disadvantages of this system are the non-
preparation of participants and incompleteness of the
document(s) presented by the author(s). The author
may hide some critical areas and unnecessary
emphasize on some specific areas of his/her interest.
 Walkthroughs may help us to find potential faults and
may also be used for sharing the documents with
others.

6
 Software inspection were first introduced at IBM by
Fagan in the early 1970s. These can be used to tackle
software quality problems because they allow the
detection and removal of defects after each phase of
software development process.
 Many name are used for this verification method like
formal reviews, technical reviews, inspection , formal
technical reviews etc.
 This is most structured and most formal type of
verification method.
 The inspection process is carried out by group of
peers. The group of peers ( generally 2 to 6) first
inspect the product at individual level. After this, they
discuss the potential defects of the product observed
in formal meeting
7
 Inspection Team
For the inspection process, a minimum of the following
four team members are required.
 Author/Owner/Producer : A programmer or designer responsible
for producing the program or document. He is also responsible for
fixing defects discovered during the inspection process.
 Inspector : A peer member of the team. He is not a manager or
supervisor directly not related to product under inspection and may
concerned with some other product.
 Moderator : A team member who manages the whole inspection
process. He / She schedules, leads and controls the inspection
process and responsible for planning successful execution of
inspection.
 Recorder : One who records all the results of the inspection
meeting.

8
 Inspection Process
Planning Plan for the inspection
meeting

Define purpose of the

Overview inspection meeting

individual Team members identify

potential errors
preparation
Item is inspected in the Inspection
inspection meeting
Meeting
Rework Bugs which are reported in the
inspection meeting are fixed

Planning and overview

Follow-up 9
 Benefits of Inspection Process
 Bug Reduction
 Bug Prevention
 Productivity
 Real-time feedback to software engineers
 Reduction in development resource
 Quality improvement
 Finding most error-prone modules

10
 Effectiveness of Inspection Process
 The effectiveness of the inspection process lies in its
rate of inspection. If the rate is very fast, it means the
coverage of an item to be evaluated is high. Similarly
if the rate is too slow, it means that coverage is not
much.
 It may calculated as the error detection efficiency of
the inspection process, as given below:
Error detection efficiency =
(Error found by an inspection / Total
errors in the item before inspection) x 100

11
  Variants of Inspection Process
 After Fragan’s original formal inspection concept, may researchers
proposed modification in it. Here are some variants of the formal
inspection.
Inspection Description
Name
Active Design Several reviews are conducted targeting a particular type of bugs
Reviews(ADRs) and conducted by the reviewers who are experts in that area.

Formal Inspection process is carried out without really having a meeting

Technical of the members. For this process an online version of the
Asynchronous document is made available to every member where they add
Review their comments and point out bugs.

Gilb Inspection Defect detection is carried out by individual inspector at his level
rather than in a group.
Humphery’s Preparation phase emphasizes the finding and logging of bugs. It
Inspection includes an analysis phase wherein individual logs are analyzed
and combined into single list.
12
.

Inspection Description
Name
N-Fold Inspection process’s effectiveness can be increased by
Inspection replicating it by having multiple inspection team.

Phased Phased inspections are designed to verify the product in a

Inspection particular domain by experts in that domain only.

13
Active Design Reviews
 This technique has been used in the Naval Research Laboratory’s
(Washington) software cost reduction(SCR) project for several years
with good results.
 The SCR project involves the experimental redevelopment of the
operational flights for Navy’s A-7E aircraft.

Overview Review Meeting

(Active Design Reviews Process)

 A brief overview of module is presented.
 Reviewers are assigned sections of document to be reviewed and
questionnaires based on the bug type. Reviewers answer the questions
in questionnaires within the time frame.
 The designers read the completed questionnaires and meet reviewers
to resolve any queries.
 This interaction is continues until both designers and reviewers
understand the issue and designers produce new version of the
document.
14
Formal Technical Asynchronous Review Method
 In this process, the meeting phase of inspection is considered
expensive and hence eliminated. An online version of document is
made available to every member where they can add their
comments and point out the bugs
Setup

Orientation

Private Review

Public Review

Consolidation

Group Meeting

Conclusion
15
Setup: It involves choosing the members and preparing the documents .
Orientation : A brief overview of the module being reviewed is
presented by moderator.
Private Review : Each reviewer or inspector individually gives comments
on the document and is unable to see the other inspector ‘s
comment.
Public Review : In this phase, all comments provided privately are made
public and all inspectors are now able to see each other’s
comments and put forward their suggestions. Based on this
feedback and with consultation of the author , it is decided
that there is a bug.
Consolidation : In this phase, the moderator analyses the result of private
and public reviews and lists the findings and unresolved
issues, if any.
Group Meeting : If required, any unresolved issues are discussed in this
phase and calling meeting is decided by moderator.
Conclusion : The final report of the inspection process along with
analysis is produced by the moderator.
16
Gilb Inspection
 Gilb and Graham defined this process. Defect detection is carried
out by individual inspector at his level rather than in group.
 Leader is responsible for planning and running the inspection.

Planning

Kick-off

Checking

Logging

Brainstorming

Edit

Follow-up
17
Planning : The leader determines the inspection participants and
schedule of the meeting
Kick-off : The relevant documents are distributed, participants are
assigned roles and briefed about the agenda of the meeting.
Checking : Each checker works individually and finds defects.
Logging : Potential defects are collected and logged.
Brainstorming : In this phase, process improvement suggestions are
recorded based on the reported bugs.
Edit : After all defects have been reported, the authors takes the
list and work accordingly.
Follow-up : The leader ensures that the edit phase has been executed
properly.

18
Humphrey’s Inspection Process
 Watts Humphrey defined this process. Preparation phase emphasizes
the finding and logging of bugs.
 It includes an analysis phase wherein individual logs are analyzed
and combined into single list.
Planning

Overview

Preparation

Analysis

Inspection

Rework

Follow-up
19
N-Fold Inspection
 It is based on the idea that the effectiveness of inspection procss can
be increased by replicating it.
Inspection 1
Planning Remark
Inspection 2 Collection and
and
Overview follow-up
Inspection n
Planning and Overview : This is the formal planning and overview
stage. In addition, it also includes the planning of how
many teams will participate in the inspection process
Inspection Stages : There are many inspection processes adopted by
many teams. It is not necessary that every team will
choose the same inspection process. The team is free to
adopt any process.
Collection Phase : The result from each inspection process are
gathered and master list of all defects is prepared.
Rework and follow-up : After defect list was prepared correction will
be made and follow-up is to be taken. 20
Phased Inspection
 Phased inspection are designed to verify the product in a particular
domain. If we feel in a particular area, we may encounter errors, then
phased inspections are carried out. Only experts who have experience
in that particular domain are called.
 There are two types of phases-
Single Inspector : In this phase, a rigorous cheek list is used by a single
inspector to verify whether the feature specified are there in the item to
be inspected.
Multiple Inspector : There are many inspectors and each inspector
examines document(s) and develop a list of questions of their own
based on particular feature. After individual checking by the
inspectors, a reconciliation meeting is organized where inspectors
compare their findings about the item.

21
 Audit of software project is carried out at any time during the SDLC.
 Generally auditors are appointed by the top management to review
the progress of the project.
 Auditors are different from the developers and testers and may not have
any envelopment in the project.
 Auditors examine the progress of the project and quality of the
processes with respect to many attributes like project planning,
management, resourcing, development approaches, testing, application
architecture, data architecture and technical architecture.
 The auditing process is continuous activity and may be carried out
many times during the SDLC.
 The auditor prepares audit report after examining the relevant records
and documents and this may help the management to initiate action, if
required .
 The management may get know about delays, if any, in the
development, involvement of users, implementation of software
practices and standards, status of risk assessment activities etc.
22