The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention

Conclusion

Risk analysis of software is broken up into two activities: historical and current risk analyses. Performing historical risk analysis results in a risk prediction model that can be applied to a software project. Risk prediction models should contain a variety of measures that can produce an accurate risk assessment. Current risk analysis uses the proven risk prediction model during the software development life cycle to assess risk as changes are being made to the code.

During software development, the risk prediction model should take into account not only code characteristics such as size, complexity, and historical failure proneness but also the amount of churn, the impact in terms of function call graph, tests, and customer scenarios. ...