While mining the defect database for patterns of problems in the last release, a Test Manager notices that many of the most damaging failures were caused by defects injected during the low-level design phase. Which of the following actions will likely give this project the most effective solution to this problem? [3]

According to the principles of early testing and defect prevention, defects should be identified as close to their point of injection as possible. Since the defects are being injected during the low-level design phase, implementing mandatory reviews (such as formal inspections or walkthroughs) of design work products is the most effective and cost-efficient method to detect and resolve these issues. Finding and fixing defects during the design phase prevents them from propagating to the coding phase, significantly reducing the cost and effort of rework later in the lifecycle.

A: Static analysis is performed on source code during implementation, which is too late to prevent or efficiently catch defects injected during the design phase. C: Formal inspections of code modules focus on the implementation phase, missing the root cause of defects originating in the low-level design. D: Increased white-box coverage occurs during dynamic testing, which is significantly more expensive and later in the lifecycle than catching design defects via reviews.

- ISTQB Certified Tester Advanced Level Syllabus - Test Manager (2012), Section 4.2 (Reviews), p. 52.

- Boehm, B. W. (1984). "Software Engineering Economics". IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.1984.5010215

- Pressman, R. S. (2014). Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. Chapter 15 (Review Techniques).