Buyer behavior · Industry experiment

An industry experiment on the effects of test-driven development on external quality and productivity

Empirical Software Engineering · 2016

Ayse Tosun, Oscar Dieste, Davide Fucci, Sira Vegas, Burak Turhan, Hakan Erdogmus, Adrian Santos, Markku Oivo, Kimmo Toro, Janne Jarvinen, Natalia Juristo

Original paper ↗

Summary

Tests the effects of TDD on external quality and productivity in an industrial setting.

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Pilot TDD with explicit quality and productivity measures rather than assuming tests automatically accelerate delivery.

Reported result

What the study found

Tests the effects of TDD on external quality and productivity in an industrial setting.

Research question

What the authors investigated

How does the study’s stated design explain its reported outcome in this setting?

Design

Industry experiment

Sample and setting

Industrial software-development teams practicing test-driven development; abstract-only

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

Single experiment context and implementation differences limit generalization.

Research sources

abstract_only

Study strength

3.5/5 Abstract-level evidence is useful for framing questions; verify full methods before transfer.

How this was assessed

The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.

Design transparency · 2/2

Based on the reported study design in the retrieved source.

Sample and setting · 1/1

The sample context is stated; a numerical count is preserved only when reported.

Outcome clarity · 1/1

The finding is summarized from publisher or article metadata.

Access for checking · 0.5/1

Only abstract or bibliographic access was confirmed.

Double-blind? The retrieved publisher record does not establish whether participants or outcome assessors were blinded.

Read the paper