Statistical Software Engineering

This report spotlights problem areas in software engineering to which the application of modern statistical methodology can be fruitfully applied. It was produced by an expert cross-disciplinary National Research Council panel. The panel deliberated, discussed, and made recommendations based upon their experience and on information gathered at a two-day public forum at which there were presentations by 12 software and industrial engineers, scientists, and statisticians. The most important findings are What is needed to address the challenge of cost-effectively building huge high quality software systems is productive interactions between software engineers and statisticians. Essential catalysts for this interactions include Following a collaborative model that partners statisticians, software engineers and a REAL software process or product following a model for data collection and analysis that ensures availability of high quality data for statistical approaches to software engineering issues and paying attention to relevant issues in education, such as in the areas of designed experiments, exploratory data analysis, modeling, risk analysis, attitudes toward assumptions, visualization, and statistical computing tools.