Using Software Metrics to Allocate Testing Resources

Abstract

Several methods of allocating testing resources among modules within a large software development project are examined and evaluated. The objective of each of the allocation schemes is to distribute resources across modules so that a uniform percentage of resources is allocated based on the predicted number of errors each module contains (i.e., resources per error are the same for each module). By far, the most uniform allocation of resources per error is obtained through the use of software complexity metrics. However, the allocation was not perfect in any of the strategies considered, suggesting that additional work must be performed to arrive at better approaches to allocation.