A defect prevention program provides a nucleus for process changes. It can be represented as a series of reoccurring cycles that support continuous process improvement. Defect prevention involves many diverse staff members who have the opportunity to provide
input for the process changes. It can be applied to any process in any organization, hence its prominent role in the TMM at level 5. In the
context of the TMM, defect prevention is one responsibility of a tester, and, as previously mentioned, testers can be involved in the application
of the program to improve the general development process and also to reduce defects injected into the test process itself. As an example of the latter, we could have a case where errors occur frequently in specific types of test cases or test procedures. The test organization could then initiate a causal analysis group to analyze these defects, and develop action plans that call for changes in the testing process to address the problem.