Improving the testing process by program static analysis

This paper describes a test process improvement aiming to improve software quality in a large organization that has a large number of software projects. First, we identified activities in the testing process in the organization and analyzed their characteristics. As a result, we identified that dynamic tests have been performed well and static tests have been less performed. Improvement plan was requested that contributes to the product quality without increasing development efforts for the projects. We then decided a plan to introduce static analysis tools and establish the testing process in which static analysis tools are applied as much as possible. Implementation of the improvement plan consists of two steps: introductory and complete application of tools to the organization. The characteristics of this process improvement are not only that tools have been evaluated and confirmed in pilot projects before actual introduction but also procedures have been designed carefully for the application of the tools to projects. The effectiveness of this approach was confirmed in the analysis of applied projects in which static problems were removed successfully before system test.