Monday, October 16, 2006

Why software testing doesn't become a success story?

From QThreads.com:

Software testing essentially reveals the mistakes done by a human mind when building up a piece of code. However, in some cases software testing can become a never-ending story. Testing team completes first testing cycle, no. of defects are found, development team fixes the defects, again testing is carried out, some more defects crop up and so on.

If project development goes this way then project manager's tension builds up and the estimates goes haywire. Release date gets extended by days, weeks and sometimes by a month or two. However, this kind of situations can be avoided if few things are taken into consideration:

1. Functionality of the application to be developed should be clear and well documented with a support of good change management process
2. Development phase of the project should be completed
3. Test cases must cover entire functionality of the application and they must be executed in a controlled environment
4. A robust process for determining the severity and priority of defect
5. Carrying out analysis of testing phase --> No. of defects found against no. of test cases executed. If application is in second stage of testing then no. of defects reoccurred, time taken for fixing up of defects according their severity.

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