Link to Studies that Show Defects are Cheaper to Fix During Requirements and Design

Question

I've seen lots of references to such studies, but can't find any links right now.

Answer 1

The book Code Complete has some of such references. If you don't have the book at hand, maybe you can take a look to its associated website.

Answer 2

Steve McConnell's book Rapid Development is an excellent treatment of software quality assurance practices. Although not a "study" per se, it does bring together the conclusions reached by many studies on software quality. (The boxed area at the top of page 72, "How Much Does It Cost Not to Find a Defect?", gives a direct answer to your question).

For the studies themselves, the book's bibliography is a good resource. Also, if you have memberships to ACM and/or IEEE, their libraries are where many of the studies mentioned in Rapid Development can be found.

In addition to McConnell, other prolific authors in the area of software quality include Barry Boehm, Capers Jones, Gerald Weinberg and Tom Gilb.