Environmental factors analysis and comparison affecting software reliability in development of multi-release software

As the application of the principles of agile and lean software development, software multiple release becomes very common in the modern society. Short iteration and short release cycle have driven the significant changes of the development process of multi-release software product, compared with single release software product. Thus, it is time to conduct a new study investigating the impact level of environmental factors on affecting software reliability in the development of multi-release software to provide a sound and concise guidance to software practitioners and researchers. Statistical learning methods, like principle component analysis, stepwise backward elimination, lasso regression, multiple linear regression, and Tukey method, are applied in this study. Comparisons regarding significant environmental factors during the whole development process, principle components, significant environmental factors in each development phase and significance level of each development phase between the development of single release software and multi-release software are also discussed.