MultiDimEr: a multi-dimensional bug analyzEr
Lakmal Silva, Michael Unterkalmsteiner, Krzysztof Wnuk
TL;DR
The paper addresses the high cost of bug management by introducing MultiDimEr, a multi-dimensional bug analysis and visualization tool implemented in an Ericsson context. It proposes ten dimensions to classify bug reports and uses heatmaps and interactive visualizations to reveal hot spots, trends, and potential root causes. Through preliminary industrial evaluation, it demonstrates that focusing on architectural components and customer-facing documents can uncover actionable insights and help validate process metrics like fault slip through, while also highlighting data-quality challenges. The work contributes a practical framework for debt-informed bug management and lays out concrete lessons and future directions for expanding dimensional analysis and stakeholder-specific usage. The approach has potential to improve preventive actions, prioritize improvements, and streamline defect management in large-scale industrial software systems.
Abstract
Background: Bugs and bug management consumes a significant amount of time and effort from software development organizations. A reduction in bugs can significantly improve the capacity for new feature development. Aims: We categorize and visualize dimensions of bug reports to identify accruing technical debt. This evidence can serve practitioners and decision makers not only as an argumentative basis for steering improvement efforts, but also as a starting point for root cause analysis, reducing overall bug inflow. Method: We implemented a tool, MultiDimEr, that analyzes and visualizes bug reports. The tool was implemented and evaluated at Ericsson. Results: We present our preliminary findings using the MultiDimEr for bug analysis, where we successfully identified components generating most of the bugs and bug trends within certain components. Conclusions: By analyzing the dimensions provided by MultiDimEr, we show that classifying and visualizing bug reports in different dimensions can stimulate discussions around bug hot spots as well as validating the accuracy of manually entered bug report attributes used in technical debt measurements such as fault slip through.