Modeling the Software Development Process as a Socio- Technical System Based on FRAM to Facilitate the Risk Analysis and Software Defects Prevention

摘要

The reliability and safety of various systems have become critical issues in modern society. Inside these systems, software has played an increasingly critical role. Investigations showed that system failures and accidents were considerably caused by software defects/faults and they brought in unacceptable outcomes. However, studies and solutions existed have limitations of overlooking human errors and their links to software defects. Hence, we took an insight into the nature of software defects and proposed a method to study the defect introductions through the software development process by modeling it as a socio-technical system (STS) using Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM). Meanwhile, theories of system accident and socio-technical system were interpreted under the background of software engineering as the foundations. For verification and demonstration, a case study of an actual engineering program was conducted. Models were builded to describe the variabilities and couplings of the socio-technical factors and how they introduced the defects. Through the analysis, we identified four classes of defects as the results of the variance between mental models that aroused in the variabilities and couplings of the functions. Control measures were suggested accordingly. To conclude, we discussed the advantages and shortages of FRAM and compared our study to the relevant ones.