Software-reliability feedback: a physics-of-failure approach

The authors advocate a physics of failure approach to the understanding and improvement of the software development process. A physics of failure analysis is a detailed examination of all information available about a software problem to determine why the problem was introduced into the software in the first place, and when and how the problem was discovered. The results of the analysis are used to suggest changes in the software development process that will preferably prevent the introduction of such problems, or, at a minimum, provide specific guidelines for discovering problems sooner. The authors report some interim results of ongoing efforts to improve the software development process. These efforts have relied heavily on a physics of failure analysis of many well-documented software problems. The physics of failure approach was found to be practical and useful