The best strategy will fail if a series of overriding issues are not addressed. Tom
Gilb argues that a software testing strategy will succeed when software
testers.
Specify product requirements in a quantifiable manner long before testing
commences.
Objective of testing is to find errors, a good testing strategy also assesses
other quality characteristics such as portability, maintainability, and
usability.
State testing objectives explicitly.
The specific objectives of testing should be stated in measurable terms.
Understand the users of the software and develop a profile for each user
category.
Develop a testing plan that emphasizes “rapid cycle testing.
Build “robust” software that is designed to test itself.
Use effective technical reviews as a filter prior to testing.
Conduct technical reviews to assess the test strategy and test cases
themselves
Develop a continuous improvement approach for the testing
process.
The software process may be viewed as the spiral illustrated in
Figure.
Initially, system engineering defines the role of software and
leads to software requirements analysis, where the information
domain, function, behavior, performance, constraints, and
validation criteria for software are established.
Moving inward along the spiral, you come to design and finally
to coding.
Software Testing Strategic
Unit testing begins at the vortex of the spiral and concentrates on
each unit (e.g., component, class, or WebApp content object) of the
software as implemented in source code.
Integration testing, where the focus is on design and the construction
of the software architecture.
Validation testing, where requirements established as part of
requirements modeling are validated against the software that has
been constructed.
Finally, system testing, where the software and other system
elements are tested as a whole…
Process from a
procedural point of
view :
Testing within the
context of software
engineering is
actually a series of
four steps that are
implemented
sequentially.
Testing is the process of exercising a program with the specific intent
of finding errors prior to delivery to the end user.
A strategy for software testing provides a road map that
describes the steps to be conducted as part of testing.
Any testing strategy must incorporate
Test planning,
Test case design,
Test execution,
Resultant data collection and Evaluation.
What Testing Shows
A Strategy Approach to software testing
Testing is a set of activities that can be planned in advance
and conducted systematically.
For this reason a template for software testing—a set of steps
into which you can place specific test case design techniques
and testing methods—should be defined for the software
process.
Generic characteristics of Strategy Approach to software testing.
To perform effective testing, you should conduct effective technical reviews. By doing this, many errors will be eliminated before testing
commences.
Testing begins at the component level and works “outward” toward the
integration of the entire computer-based system.
Different testing techniques are appropriate for different software engineering
approaches and at different points in time.
Testing is conducted by the developer of the software and (for large projects) an
independent test group.
Testing and debugging are different activities, but debugging must be
accommodated in any testing strategy.
Verification and Validation (V & V)
Software testing is one element of a broader topic that is often
referred to as verification and validation (V&V).
Verification refers to the set of tasks that ensure that software
correctly implements a specific function.
Validation refers to a different set of tasks that ensure that the
software that has been built is traceable to customer requirements.
Boehm states this another way:
Verification: “Are we building the product right?”
