Applied Software Project Management

Applied Software Project

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Applied Software Project Management

Quality
• Quality means “conformance to requirements”
– The best testers can only catch defects that are contrary to
specification.
– Testing does not make the software perfect.
– If an organization does not have good requirements
engineering practices then it will be very hard to deliver
software that fills the users’ needs, because the product
team does not really know what those needs are.

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Applied Software Project Management

Test Plans
• The goal of test planning is to establish the list of tasks which,
if performed, will identify all of the requirements that have
not been met in the software. The main work product is the
test plan.
– The test plan documents the overall approach to the test. In many
ways, the test plan serves as a summary of the test activities that will
be performed.
– It shows how the tests will be organized, and outlines all of the
testers’ needs which must be met in order to properly carry out the
test.
– The test plan should be inspected by members of the engineering
team and senior managers.

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Applied Software Project Management

Test Cases
• A test case is a description of a specific interaction that a tester will have
in order to test a single behavior of the software. Test cases are very
similar to use cases, in that they are step-by-step narratives which define
a specific interaction between the user and the software.
– A typical test case is laid out in a table, and includes:
• A unique name and number
• A requirement which this test case is exercising
• Preconditions which describe the state of the software before the test case (which
is often a previous test case that must always be run before the current test case)
• Steps that describe the specific steps which make up the interaction
• Expected Results which describe the expected state of the software after the test
case is executed
• Test cases must be repeatable.
– Good test cases are data-specific, and describe each interaction necessary to
repeat the test exactly.

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Applied Software Project Management

Test Execution
• The software testers begin executing the test plan after the programmers
deliver the alpha build, or a build that they feel is feature complete.
– The alpha should be of high quality—the programmers should feel that it is
ready for release, and as good as they can get it.
• There are typically several iterations of test execution.
– The first iteration focuses on new functionality that has been added since the
last round of testing.
– A regression test is a test designed to make sure that a change to one area of
the software has not caused any other part of the software which had
previously passed its tests to stop working.
– Regression testing usually involves executing all test cases which have
previously been executed.
– There are typically at least two regression tests for any software project.

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Applied Software Project Management

Defect Tracking
• The defect tracking system is a program that testers use to
record and track defects. It routes each defect between
testers, developers, the project manager and others,
following a workflow designed to ensure that the defect is
verified and repaired.
– Every defect encountered in the test run is recorded and entered into
a defect tracking system so that it can be prioritized.
– The defect workflow should track the interaction between the testers
who find the defect and the programmers who fix it. It should ensure
that every defect can be properly prioritized and reviewed by all of
the stakeholders to determine whether or not it should be repaired.
This process of review and prioritization referred to as triage.

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Applied Software Project Management

Smoke Tests
• A smoke test is a subset of the test cases that
is typically representative of the overall test
plan.
– Smoke tests are good for verifying proper
deployment or other non invasive changes.
– They are also useful for verifying a build is ready
to send to test.
– Smoke tests are not substitute for actual
functional testing.

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Applied Software Project Management

Test Automation
• Test automation is a practice in which testers employ
a software tool to reduce or eliminate repetitive
tasks.
– Testers either write scripts or use record-and-playback to
capture user interactions with the software being tested.
– This can save the testers a lot of time if many iterations of
testing will be required.
– It costs a lot to develop and maintain automated test
suites, so it is generally not worth developing them for
tests that will executed only a few times.

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Applied Software Project Management

Postmortem Reports
• The postmortem report is an overall account of the
team’s experience in building the software, and of
the experience of the users and stakeholders in
working with the team.
– The report should contain an honest assessment of how
the team members, users, and stakeholders perceived the
end product, and assessed the decisions made throughout
the project.
– The purpose of the post-mortem report is to highlight the
team’s successes and identify any problems which should
be fixed in future releases.

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