An analysis of factors affecting software reliability

This paper presents the findings of empirical research from 13 companies participating in software development to identify the factors that may impact software reliability. Thirty-two potential factors involved in every stage of the software development process are defined. The study uses a survey instrument to analyze these factors and identify factors that have significant impact on software reliability. The survey focuses on the perspective of the primary participants, managers, system engineers, programmers, testers and other people involved in software research or development teams. Two techniques such as the relative weight method and analysis of variance technique (ANOVA) have been used to analyze all factors and rank them in terms of their impact on software reliability. The research findings have important implications for further research and the practice of software development. For researchers, it points to improvement schemes of existing reliability modeling and factors that may be further verified and extended in subsequent research. For practitioners, it provides a general guide to the important aspects to consider in the whole software development process. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.