Analysis of fault generation caused by stress during software development

The effects of stress on fault generation in both structured and functional design methodologies during software development were quantitatively determined through a controlled experiment. Two teams developed the same software program under the same stressed conditions, except for design methodologies. The degree of stress was measured by inner metrics we proposed. The results of the analysis show that (1) the generation rate of faults caused by mental stress of the team who developed a software program using functional design methodology was higher than that of the other team, which used structured design methodology; (2) among the faults caused by human nature, many seemed to be correlated to stress at higher stress levels, so that faults caused by stress generated by developers were considered to be much more than those reported by them; and (3) physical stress could generate faults at a higher rate than mental stress even when it appeared for a short period, independent of design methodology. (C) 1997 by Elsevier Science Inc.