ISTQB / ISEB Foundation Exam Practice - 5

Test Management Software Testing ISEB Foundation Certificate Course 1 Principles 2 Lifecycle 4 Dynamic test techniques 3 Static testing 5 Management 6 Tools Chapter 5

Contents Organisation Configuration Management Test estimation, monitoring and control Incident management Standards for testing Test Management 1 2 4 5 3 6 ISTQB / ISEB Foundation Exam Practice

Importance of Independence Time No. faults Release to End Users

Organisational structures for testing Developer responsibility (only) Development team responsibility (buddy system) Tester(s) on the development team Dedicated team of testers (not developers) Internal test consultants (advice, review, support, not perform the testing) Outside organisation (3rd party testers)

Testing by developers Pro’s: know the code best will find problems that the testers will miss they can find and fix faults cheaply Con’s difficult to destroy own work tendency to 'see' expected results, not actual results subjective assessment

Testing by development team Pro’s: some independence technical depth on friendly terms with “buddy” - less threatening Con’s pressure of own development work technical view, not business view lack of testing skill

Tester on development team Pro’s: independent view of the software dedicated to testing, no development responsibility part of the team, working to same goal: quality Con’s lack of respect lonely, thankless task corruptible (peer pressure) a single view / opinion

Independent test team Pro’s: dedicated team just to do testing specialist testing expertise testing is more objective & more consistent Con’s “over the wall” syndrome may be antagonistic / confrontational over-reliance on testers, insufficient testing by developers

Internal test consultants Pro’s: highly specialist testing expertise, providing support and help to improve testing done by all better planning, estimation & control from a broad view of testing in the organisation Con’s someone still has to do the testing level of expertise enough? needs good “people” skills - communication influence, not authority

Outside organisation (3rd party) Pro’s: highly specialist testing expertise (if out-sourced to a good organisation) independent of internal politics Con’s lack of company and product knowledge expertise gained goes outside the company expensive?

Usual choices Component testing: done by programmers (or buddy) Integration testing in the small: poorly defined activity System testing: often done by independent test team Acceptance testing: done by users (with technical help) demonstration for confidence

So what we have seen thus far.. independence is important not a replacement for familiarity different levels of independence pro's and con's at all levels test techniques offer another dimension to independence (independence of thought) test strategy should use a good mix "declaration of independence” balance of skills needed

Skills needed in testing Technique specialists Automators Database experts Business skills & understanding Usability expert Test environment expert Test managers

Problems resulting from poor configuration management can’t reproduce a fault reported by a customer can’t roll back to previous subsystem one change overwrites another emergency fault fix needs testing but tests have been updated to new software version which code changes belong to which version? faults which were fixed re-appear tests worked perfectly - on old version “Shouldn’t that feature be in this version?”

A definition of Configuration Management “The process of identifying and defining the configuration items in a system, controlling the release and change of these items throughout the system life cycle, recording and reporting the status of configuration items and change requests, and verifying the completeness and correctness of configuration items.” ANSI/IEEE Std 729-1983, Software Engineering Terminology

Configuration Management An engineering management procedure that includes configuration identification configuration control configuration status accounting configuration audit Encyclopedia of Software Engineering, 1994

Configuration identification Configuration Identification Configuration Control Status Accounting Configuration Auditing Configuration Structures CI Planning Version/issue Numbering Baseline/release Planning Naming Conventions CI: Configuration item: stand alone, test alone, use alone element Selection criteria

Configuration control Configuration Identification Configuration Control Status Accounting Configuration Auditing CI Submission Withdrawal/ Distribution control Status/version Control Clearance Investigation Impact Analysis Authorised Amendment Review/ Test Controlled Area/library Problem/fault Reporting Change Control Configuration Control Board

Status accounting & Configuration Auditing Configuration Identification Configuration Control Status Accounting Configuration Auditing Status Accounting Database Input to SA Database Queries and Reports Data Analysis Traceability, impact analysis Procedural Conformance CI Verification Agree with customer what has been built, tested & delivered

Products for CM in testing test plans test designs test cases: test input test data test scripts expected results actual results test tools CM is critical for controlled testing What would not be under configuration management? Live data!

Estimating testing is no different Estimating any job involves the following identify tasks how long for each task who should perform the task when should the task start and finish what resources, what skills predictable dependencies task precedence (build test before running it) technical precedence (add & display before edit)

Estimating testing is different Additional destabilising dependencies testing is not an independent activity delivery schedules for testable items missed test environments are critical Test Iterations (Cycles) testing should find faults faults need to be fixed after fixed, need to retest how many times does this happen?

Test cycles / iterations Debug D R D R 3-4 iterations is typical Test Theory: Test Practice: Des Ex Ver Bld Iden Retest Retest

Estimating iterations past history number of faults expected can predict from previous test effectiveness and previous faults found (in test, review, Inspection) % faults found in each iteration (nested faults) % fixed [in]correctly time to report faults time waiting for fixes how much in each iteration?

Time to report faults If it takes 10 mins to write a fault report, how many can be written in one day? The more fault reports you write, the less testing you will be able to do. Test Fault analysis & reporting Mike Royce: suspension criteria: when testers spend > 25% time on faults

Measuring test execution progress 1 tests run tests passed tests planned now release date what does this mean? what would you do?

Diverging S-curve poor test entry criteria ran easy tests first insufficient debug effort common faults affect all tests software quality very poor tighten entry criteria cancel project do more debugging stop testing until faults fixed continue testing to scope software quality Note: solutions / actions will impact other things as well, e.g. schedules Possible causes Potential control actions

Measuring test execution progress 2 tests planned run passed action taken old release date new release date

Measuring test execution progress 3 tests planned run passed action taken old release date new release date

Case history Source: Tim Trew, Philips, June 1999

Control Management actions and decisions affect the process, tasks and people to meet original or modified plan to achieve objectives Examples tighten entry / exit criteria reallocation of resources Feedback is essential to see the effect of actions and decisions

Entry and exit criteria Test Phase 1 Test Phase 2 "tested" is it ready for my testing? Phase 2 Phase 1 Entry criteria Exit criteria Acceptance criteria Completion criteria

Entry/exit criteria examples clean compiled programmer claims it is working OK lots of tests have been run tests have been reviewed / Inspected no faults found in current tests all faults found fixed and retested specified coverage achieved all tests run after last fault fix, no new faults poor better

What actions can you take? What can you affect? resource allocation number of test iterations tests included in an iteration entry / exit criteria applied release date What can you not affect: number of faults already there What can you affect indirectly? rework effort which faults to be fixed [first] quality of fixes (entry criteria to retest)

Incident management Incident: any event that occurs during testing that requires subsequent investigation or correction. actual results do not match expected results possible causes: software fault test was not performed correctly expected results incorrect can be raised for documentation as well as code

Incidents May be used to monitor and improve testing Should be logged (after hand-over) Should be tracked through stages, e.g.: initial recording analysis (s/w fault, test fault, enhancement, etc.) assignment to fix (if fault) fixed not tested fixed and tested OK closed

Use of incident metrics Is this testing approach “wearing out”? What happened in that week? We’re better than last year How many faults can we expect?

Report as quickly as possible? report 5 test can’t reproduce - “not a fault” - still there can’t reproduce , back to test to report again insufficient information - fix is incorrect dev 5 reproduce 20 fix 5 re-test fault fixed 10 dev can’t reproduce incident report test 10

What information about incidents? Test ID Test environment Software under test ID Actual & expected results Severity, scope, priority Name of tester Any other relevant information (e.g. how to reproduce it)

Severity versus priority Severity impact of a failure caused by this fault Priority urgency to fix a fault Examples minor cosmetic typo crash if this feature is used company name, board member: priority, not severe Experimental, not needed yet: severe, not priority

Incident Lifecycle 1 steps to reproduce a fault 2 test fault or system fault 3 external factors that influence the symptoms 4 root cause of the problem 5 how to repair (without introducing new problems) 6 changes debugged and properly component tested 7 is the fault fixed? Source: Rex Black “Managing the Testing Process”, MS Press, 1999 Tester Tasks Developer Tasks

Metrics Example GQM Goal: EDD < 2 defects per KloC Q1: What is the size of the software? M1.1: KloC per module Q2: How many defects in code? M2.1: Estimation of # defects Q3: How many defects found? M3.1: # defects in Review and Inspection M3.2: # defects in subsequent tests Q4: What is the yield of the tests done? M4.1: # defects (M3) divided by estimation (M2)

Metrics Exercise Goal: In ST, do an optimal check in minimum time based on the 3 customers for Reger Priority of processes used by customers Coverage of the processes Incidents found Severity of incidents Time planned and spent

Standards for testing QA standards (e.g. ISO 9000) testing should be performed industry-specific standards (e.g. railway, pharmaceutical, medical) what level of testing should be performed testing standards (e.g. BS 7925-1&2) how to perform testing

Summary: Key Points Independence can be achieved by different organisational structures Configuration Management is critical for testing Tests must be estimated, monitored and controlled Incidents need to be managed Standards for testing: quality, industry, testing Test Management 1 2 4 5 3 6 ISTQB / ISEB Foundation Exam Practice

ISTQB / ISEB Foundation Exam Practice - 5

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