Prioritizing Program Elements: A Pretesting Effort to Improve Software Quality

Table 4

SFMEA at method level for some components within the withdraw scenario.

Triggered hazard	Component	Failure mode	Effect	Severity
A fault in dispensing cash	Cash dispenser	Cash dispenser is empty but not raising any exception	Money will be deducted from the account immediately, though the customer is not able to withdraw the said amount. As all transactions are maintained in the Log, the account will be updated by the banker later on	Critical
A fault in completing transaction	Withdrawal	The object of withdrawal component fails to create a new receipt	Receipt will not be printed	Minor
A fault in reading menu choice from the screen	Withdrawal	Failed to call the read menu choice method of an object of component customer console	Transaction cannot be performed	Marginal