ABSTRACT Defect management is one of the major issues prevailing in software industry. The main objective of the defect management is to achieve complete customer satisfaction. One of the most important steps towards total customer satisfaction is the generation of nearly zero-defect products. Both industry and research segments are continuously working in this direction. This work is an empirical analysis of data from several leading software industries. The paper shows defect distribution in small, medium and large category of projects. It reveals the existence of various types of defect patterns spanning across major phases of software development. It further analyses the most common root causes and percentage in which they contribute towards occurrences the defect patterns. The awareness of defect patterns enables one to capture of majority of defects close to defect inception point. This knowledge reduces defect injection and helps to develop nearly zero-defect product in software industry.
