Issues of software quality and management in practice: an empirical investigation of use of explicit documents in software review

Past research suggests that explicit inputs, such as reading techniques documents, are the critical factors influencing software review performance. However, there is no published evidence investigating the important relationship between explicit inputs and performance in practice. As a result, the aim of this paper is to examine the effect of explicit inputs on software review performance in practice. A total of 205 developers voluntarily participated in a questionnaire survey in Australia in 2003. The main findings include: (1) previously reviewed software documents are the key drivers to the performance, (2) reading technique documents, prescription documents and reports has no value to software review performance.