Estimation Methods for Defect Estimation

Accurate defect prediction is useful for planning and management of software testing. The major goal of a software testing process is to find and fix, during debugging, as many defects as possible and release a product with a reasonable reliability.

A trade-off between releasing a product earlier or investing more time on testing is always an issue for the organization. The clear view of the status of the testing process is crucial to compute the pros and cons of possible alternatives. Time to achieve the established goal and percentage of the goal achieved up to the moment are important factors to determine the status of a software testing process.

Many defect prediction techniques have addressed this important problem by estimating the total number of defects, which then provide the status of a testing process in terms of remaining number of defects in a software product. The availability of an accurate estimation of the number of defects at early stages of the testing process allows for proper planning of resource usage, estimation of completion time, and current status of the process. Also, an estimate of the number of defects in the product by the time of release, allows the inference of required customer support.