Software project Management

Dr. Tajfar Parvin Kaviani

Software Project management

Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in a user or project manual, which is created at the beginning of the development process. Software Project like any other project have its own dilemma, which a wise project manager can achieve a good result by using right tools and experienced people. As focusing on development team is important to create a good quality product, focus on experienced, honest test team is important too.

The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget. The secondary — and more ambitious — challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and integrate them which    pre-defined objectives.

Project managerA project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any domain of engineering. Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or any discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities. Project management is the responsibility of a project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress, mutual interaction and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of overall failure, maximizes benefits, and minimizes costs.

Software Project Manager

A Software Project Manager has many of the same skills as their counterparts in other industries. Beyond the skills normally associated with traditional project management in industries such as construction and manufacturing, a software project manager will typically have an extensive background in software development. Many software project managers hold a degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Management of Information Systems or another related field.

In traditional project management a heavyweight, predictive methodology such as the waterfall model is often employed, but software project managers must also be skilled in more lightweight, adaptive methodologies such as DSDM, Scrum and XP. These project management methodologies are based on the uncertainty of developing a new software system and advocate smaller, incremental development cycles. These incremental or iterative cycles are time box  and produce a working subset of the entire system deliverable at the end of each iteration. The increasing adoption of lightweight approaches is due largely to the fact that software requirements are very susceptible to change, and it is extremely difficult to illuminate all the potential requirements in a single project phase before the software development commences.

The software project manager is also expected to be familiar with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). This may require in depth knowledge of requirements solicitation, application development, logical and physical database design and networking. This knowledge is typically the result of the aforementioned education and experience.

Responsibilities

The Project Manager is accountable for ensuring that everyone on the team knows and executes his or her role, feels empowered and supported in the role, knows the roles of the other team members and acts upon the belief that those roles will be performed. The specific responsibilities of the Project Manager may vary depending on the industry, the company size, the company maturity, and the company culture. However, there are some responsibilities that are common to all Project Managers:

·        Developing the project plans

·        Testing the project product

·        Managing the project stakeholders

·        Managing communication

·        Managing the project team

·        Managing the project risk

·        Managing the project schedule

·        Managing the project budget

·        Managing the project conflicts

·        Managing the project delivery

History

The first historically relevant year for the development of Project Management Software is 1896, marked by the introduction of the Hronogram. Polish Economist Karol Adamiecki’s attempted to display task development in a floating chart, and laid the foundation for project management software as it is today. 1912 was the year when the Henry Gantt replaced the Hrongram into the more advanced Gantt chart, a scheduling diagram which broke ship design tasks down for the purposes of Hoover Dam in early 1931. Today’s Gantt charts are almost the same as their original counterparts, and are a critical part of all project management systems.

The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management era where core engineering fields come together to work as one. Project management became recognized as a distinct discipline arising from the management discipline with engineering model. In the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad-hoc basis, using mostly Gantt charts and informal techniques and tools. At that time, two mathematical project-scheduling models were developed. The "Critical Path Method" (CPM) and the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, were developed.

PERT and CPM are very similar in their approach but still present some differences and because of this core difference CPM and PERT are used in different contexts. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.

The International Project Management Association (IPMA) was founded in Europe in 1967,[15] as a federation of several national project management associations. IPMA maintains its federal structure today and now includes member associations on every continent except Antarctica. IPMA offers a Four Level Certification program based on the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB).  The ICB covers technical, contextual, and behavioral competencies.

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed in the USA.[17] PMI publishes A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), which describes project management practices that are common to "most projects, most of the time." PMI also offers multiple certifications.

Approaches

There are a number of approaches for managing project activities including lean, iterative, incremental, and phased approaches.

Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

The traditional approach

A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. In the "traditional approach" five developmental components of a project can be distinguished (four stages plus control):

"Typical development phases of an engineering project"

1.  initiation

2.  planning and design

3.  execution and construction

4.  monitoring and controlling systems

5.  completion and finish point

Many industries use variations of these project stages. For example, when working on a brick-and-mortar design and construction, projects will typically progress through stages like pre-planning, conceptual design, schematic design, design development, construction drawings (or contract documents), and construction administration. In software development, this approach is often known as the waterfall model, i.e., one series of tasks after another in linear sequence. In software development many organizations have adapted the Rational Unified Process (RUP) to fit this methodology, although RUP does not require or explicitly recommend this practice. Waterfall development works well for small, well-defined projects, but often fails in larger projects of undefined and ambiguous nature. The Cone of Uncertainty explains some of this as the planning made on the initial phase of the project suffers from a high degree of uncertainty. This becomes especially true as software development is often the realization of a new or novel product.

PRINCE2

PRINCE2 is a structured approach to project management released in 1996 as a generic project management method. It combines the original PROMPT methodology (which evolved into the PRINCE methodology) with IBM’s MITP (managing the implementation of the total project) methodology. PRINCE2 provides a method for managing projects within a clearly defined framework.

PRINCE2 focuses on the definition and delivery of products, in particular their quality requirements. As such, it defines a successful project as being output-oriented through creating an agreed set of products that define the scope of the project and provides the basis for planning and control, that is, how then to coordinate people and activities, how to design and supervise product delivery, and what to do if products and therefore the scope of the project has to be adjusted if it does not develop as planned.

In the method, each process is specified with its key inputs and outputs and with specific goals and activities to be carried out to deliver a project’s outcomes as defined by its Business Case. This allows for continuous assessment and adjustment when deviation from the Business Case is required.

Critical chain project management

Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a method of planning and managing project execution designed to deal with uncertainties inherent in managing projects, while taking into consideration limited availability of resources(physical, human skills, as well as management & support capacity) needed to execute projects.

The project plan should typically undergo resource leveling, and the longest sequence of resource-constrained tasks should be identified as the critical chain. In some cases, such as managing contracted sub-projects, it is advisable to use a simplified approach without resource leveling.

Process-based management

The incorporation of process-based management has been driven by the use of Maturity models such as the OPM3 and the CMMI (capability maturity model integration) and ISO (SPICE – software process improvement and capability estimation). Unlike SEI’s CMM, the OPM3 maturity model describes how to make project management processes capable of performing successfully, consistently, and predictably in order to enact the strategies of an organization.

Lean project management

Lean project management uses the principles from lean manufacturing to focus on delivering value with less waste and reduced time.

Extreme project management/Megaproject

"Planning and feedback loops in Extreme programming (XP) with the time frames of the multiple loops."

In critical studies of project management it has been noted that several PERT based models are not well suited for the multi-project company environment of today. Most of them are aimed at very large-scale, one-time, non-routine projects, and currently all kinds of management are expressed in terms of projects.

Using complex models for “projects” spanning a few weeks has been proven to cause unnecessary costs and low maneuverability in several cases. The generalization of Extreme Programming to other kinds of projects is extreme project management, which may be used in combination with the process modeling and management principles of human interaction management.

Benefits realization management

Benefits realization management (BRM) enhances normal project management techniques through a focus on outcomes (the benefits) of a project rather than products or outputs, and then measuring the degree to which that is happening to keep a project on track. This can help to reduce the risk of a completed project being a failure by delivering agreed upon requirements/outputs but failing to deliver the benefits of those requirements.

In addition, BRM practices aim to ensure the alignment between project outcomes and business strategies. The effectiveness of these practices is supported by recent research evidencing BRM practices influencing project success from a strategic perspective across different countries and industries.

An example of delivering a project to requirements might be agreeing to deliver a computer system that will process staff data and manage payroll, holiday and staff personnel records. Under BRM the agreement might be to achieve a specified reduction in staff hours required to process and maintain staff data.

Processes

"The project development stages"

Traditionally, project management includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes or stages of development will be used. Major process groups generally include:

·        Initiation

·        Planning

·        Production or execution

·        Monitoring and controlling

·        Closing

In project environments with a significant exploratory element (e.g., research and development), these stages may be supplemented with decision points at which the project's continuation is debated and decided. An example is the Phase–gate model.

Initiating

"Initiating process group processes"

The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project. If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.

The initiating stage should include a plan that encompasses the following areas:

·        analyzing the business needs/requirements in measurable goals

·        reviewing of the current operations

·        financial analysis of the costs and benefits including a budget

·        stakeholder analysis, including users, and support personnel for the project

·        project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables, and schedules

Planning

After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail. The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.

Project planning generally consists of:

·        determining how to plan (e.g. by level of detail or Rolling Wave planning);

·        developing the scope statement;

·        selecting the planning team;

·        identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure;

·        identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence;

·        estimating the resource requirements for the activities;

·        estimating time and cost for activities;

·        developing the schedule;

·        developing the budget;

·        risk planning;

·        gaining formal approval to begin work.

Additional processes, such as planning for communications and for scope management identifying roles and responsibilities, determining what to purchase for the project and holding a kick-off meeting are also generally advisable.

For new product development projects, conceptual design of the operation of the final product may be performed concurrent with the project planning activities, and may help to inform the planning team when identifying deliverables and planning activities.

Executing

"Executing process group processes"

The execution/implementation phase ensures that the project management plan's deliverables are executed accordingly. This phase involves proper allocation, co-ordination and management of human resources and any other resources such as material and budgets. The output of this phase is the project deliverables.

Monitoring and controlling

"Monitoring and controlling process group processes"

Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.

Monitoring and controlling includes:

·        Measuring the ongoing project activities ('where we are');

·        Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope, etc.) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);

·        Identifying corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track again);

·        Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are implemented.

In multi-phase projects, the monitoring and control process also provides feedback between project phases, in order to implement corrective or preventive actions to bring the project into compliance with the project management plan.

Project maintenance is an ongoing process, and it includes:

·        Continuing support of end-users

·        Correction of errors

·        Updates to the product over time

"Monitoring and controlling cycle"

In this stage, auditors should pay attention to how effectively and quickly user problems are resolved.

Over the course of any construction project, the work scope may change. Change is a normal and expected part of the construction process. Changes can be the result of necessary design modifications, differing site conditions, material availability, contractor-requested changes, value engineering and impacts from third parties, to name a few. Beyond executing the change in the field, the change normally needs to be documented to show what was actually constructed. This is referred to as change management. Hence, the owner usually requires a final record to show all changes or, more specifically, any change that modifies the tangible portions of the finished work. The record is made on the contract documents – usually, but not necessarily limited to, the design drawings. The end product of this effort is what the industry terms as-built drawings, or more simply, "as built." The requirement for providing them is a norm in construction contracts. Construction document management is a highly important task undertaken with the aid an online or desktop software system, or maintained through physical documentation. The increasing legality pertaining to the construction industries maintenance of correct documentation has caused the increase in the need for document management systems.

When changes are introduced to the project, the viability of the project has to be re-assessed. It is important not to lose sight of the initial goals and targets of the projects. When the changes accumulate, the forecasted result may not justify the original proposed investment in the project. Successful project management identifies these components, and tracks and monitors progress so as to stay within time and budget frames already outlined at the commencement of the project.

Closing

"Closing process group processes"

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:

·        Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.

·        Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase

Also included in this phase is the Post Implementation Review. This is a vital phase of the project for the project team to learn from experiences and apply to future projects. Normally a Post Implementation Review consists of looking at things that went well and analyzing things that went badly on the project to come up with lessons learned.

Project controlling and project control systems

Project controlling or Cost Engineering means Controls cover a number of elements such as Design, Cost, Schedule, Quality and Risk and a number of disciplines cover this area and it should be established as an independent function in project management. It implements verification and controlling function during the processing of a project in order to reinforce the defined performance and formal goals. The tasks of project controlling are also:

·        the creation of infrastructure for the supply of the right information and its update

·        the establishment of a way to communicate disparities of project parameters

·        the development of project information technology based on an intranet or the determination of a project key performance indicator system (KPI)

·        divergence analyses and generation of proposals for potential project regulations

·        the establishment of methods to accomplish an appropriate project structure, project workflow organization, project control and governance

·        creation of transparency among the project parameters

Fulfillment and implementation of these tasks can be achieved by applying specific methods and instruments of project controlling. The following methods of project controlling can be applied:

·        investment analysis

·        cost–benefit analysis

·        value benefit analysis

·        expert surveys

·        simulation calculations

·        risk-profile analysis

·        surcharge calculations

·        milestone trend analysis

·        cost trend analysis

·        target/actual-comparison

Project control is that element of a project that keeps it on track, on-time and within budget. Project control begins early in the project with planning and ends late in the project with post-implementation review, having a thorough involvement of each step in the process. Projects may be audited or reviewed while the project is in progress. Formal audits are generally risk or compliance-based and management will direct the objectives of the audit. An examination may include a comparison of approved project management processes with how the project is actually being managed. Each project should be assessed for the appropriate level of control needed: too much control is too time consuming, too little control is very risky. If project control is not implemented correctly, the cost to the business should be clarified in terms of errors and fixes.

Control systems are needed for cost, risk, quality, communication, time, change, procurement, and human resources. In addition, auditors should consider how important the projects are to the financial statements, how reliant the stakeholders are on controls, and how many controls exists. Auditors should review the development process and procedures for how they are implemented. The process of development and the quality of the final product may also be assessed if needed or requested. A business may want the auditing firm to be involved throughout the process to catch problems earlier on so that they can be fixed more easily. An auditor can serve as a controls consultant as part of the development team or as an independent auditor as part of an audit.

Businesses sometimes use formal systems development processes. These help assure that systems are developed successfully. A formal process is more effective in creating strong controls, and auditors should review this process to confirm that it is well designed and is followed in practice. A good formal systems development plan outlines:

·        A strategy to align development with the organization's broader objectives

·        Standards for new systems

·        Project management policies for timing and budgeting

·        Procedures describing the process

·        Evaluation of quality of change

Project management types

Project management can apply to any project, but the Information technology industry has  evolved to develop its own form of Project management that is referred to as IT Project management and which specializes in the delivery of technical assets and services that are required to pass through various lifecycle phases such as planning, design, development, testing, and deployment. 

 For each type of project management, project managers develop and utilize repeatable templates that are specific to the industry they're dealing with. This allows project plans to become very thorough and highly repeatable, with the specific intent to increase quality, lower delivery costs, and lower time to deliver project results.

Risk Management

Risk management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety.

Risk sources are identified and located in human factor variables, mental states and decision making as well as infrastructural or technological assets and tangible variables. 

Work breakdown structure

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a tree structure that shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an objective—for example a program, project, and contract. The WBS may be hardware-, product-, service-, or process-oriented.

A WBS can be developed by starting with the end objective and successively subdividing it into manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility (e.g., systems, subsystems, components, tasks, sub-tasks, and work packages), which include all steps necessary to achieve the objective.

The work breakdown structure provides a common framework for the natural development of the overall planning and control of a contract and is the basis for dividing work into definable increments from which the statement of work can be developed and technical, schedule, cost, and labor hour reporting can be established. The work breakdown structure can be displayed in two forms one in form of a table with subdivision of tasks two in form of an organically chart.

International standards

There have been several attempts to develop project management standards, such as:

·        ISO 21500: 2012 – Guidance on project management. This is the first project management ISO.

·        ISO 31000: 2009 – Risk management. Risk management is 1 of the 10 knowledge areas of either ISO 21500 or PMBoK5 concept of project management.

·        ISO/IEC/IEEE 16326-2009 – Systems and Software Engineering—Life Cycle Processes—Project Management

·        Capability Maturity Model from the Software Engineering Institute.

·        GAPPS, Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards – an open source standard describing COMPETENCIES for project and program managers.

·        A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge from the Project Management Institute (PMI)

·        HERMES method, Swiss general project management method, selected for use in Luxembourg and international organizations.

·        The ISO standards ISO 9000, a family of standards for quality management systems, and the ISO 10006:2003, for Quality management systems and guidelines for quality management in projects.

·        PRINCE2, Projects IN Controlled Environments.

·        Association for Project Management Body of Knowledge

·        Team Software Process (TSP) from the Software Engineering Institute.

·        Total Cost Management Framework, AACE International's Methodology for Integrated Portfolio, Program and Project Management.

·        V-Model, an original systems development method.

·        The Logical framework approach, which is popular in international development organizations.

·        [Australian Institute of Project Management] AIPM has 4 levels of certification; CPPP, CPPM, CPPD & CPPE for Certified Practicing Project ... Partner, Manager, Director and Executive.

Software testing

Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test.[1] Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include the process of executing a program or application with the intent of finding software bugs (errors or other defects).

Software testing involves the execution of a software component or system component to evaluate one or more properties of interest. In general, these properties indicate the extent to which the component or system under test:

·        meets the requirements that guided its design and development,

·        responds correctly to all kinds of inputs,

·        performs its functions within an acceptable time,

·        is sufficiently usable,

·        can be installed and run in its intended environments, and

·        Achieve the general result its stakeholder’s desire.

As the number of possible tests for even simple software components is practically infinite, all software testing uses some strategy to select tests that are feasible for the available time and resources. As a result, software testing typically (but not exclusively) attempts to execute a program or application with the intent of finding software bugs (errors or other defects). The job of testing is an iterative process as when one bug is fixed, it can illuminate other, deeper bugs, or can even create new ones.

Software testing can provide objective, independent information about the quality of software and risk of its failure to users and/or sponsors

Testing methods

There are many approaches available in software testing. Reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections are referred to as static testing, whereas actually executing programmed code with a given set of test cases is referred to as dynamic testing.

Static testing involves verification, whereas dynamic testing involves validation. Together they help improve software quality. Among the techniques for static analysis, mutation testing can be used to ensure the test cases will detect errors which are introduced by mutating the source code.

The box approach

Software testing methods are traditionally divided into white- and black-box testing. These two approaches are used to describe the point of view that a test engineer takes when designing test cases.

White Box Testing  

White-box testing is a method of testing the application at the level of the source code. These test cases are derived through the use of the design techniques mentioned above: control flow testing, data flow testing, branch testing, path testing, statement coverage and decision coverage as well as modified condition/decision coverage. White-box testing is the use of these techniques as guidelines to create an error free environment by examining any fragile code. These White-box testing techniques are the building blocks of white-box testing, whose essence is the careful testing of the application at the source code level to prevent any hidden errors later on.] These different techniques exercise every visible path of the source code to minimize errors and create an error-free environment. The whole point of white-box testing is the ability to know which line of the code is being executed and being able to identify what the correct output should be.

White-box test design techniques include the following code coverage criteria:

·        Control flow testing

·        Data flow testing

·        Branch testing

·        Statement coverage

·        Decision coverage

·        Modified condition/decision coverage

·        Prime path testing

·        Path testing

Levels

1.  Unit testing. White-box testing is done during unit testing to ensure that the code is working as intended, before any integration happens with previously tested code. White-box testing during unit testing catches any defects early on and aids in any defects that happen later on after the code is integrated with the rest of the application and therefore prevents any type of errors later on.[1]

2.  Integration testing. White-box testing at this level are written to test the interactions of each interface with each other. The Unit level testing made sure that each code was tested and working accordingly in an isolated environment and integration examines the correctness of the behaviour in an open environment through the use of white-box testing for any interactions of interfaces that are known to the programmer.

3.  Regression testing. White-box testing during regression testing is the use of recycled white-box test cases at the unit and integration testing levels.

Basic procedure

White-box testing's basic procedures involves the tester having a deep level of understanding of the source code being tested. The programmer must have a deep understanding of the application to know what kinds of test cases to create so that every visible path is exercised for testing. Once the source code is understood then the source code can be analyzed for test cases to be created. These are the three basic steps that white-box testing takes in order to create test cases:

1.  Input involves different types of requirements, functional specifications, detailed designing of documents, proper source code, security specifications.] This is the preparation stage of white-box testing to layout all of the basic information.

2.  Processing involves performing risk analysis to guide whole testing process, proper test plan, execute test cases and communicate results. This is the phase of building test cases to make sure they thoroughly test the application the given results are recorded accordingly.

3.  Output involves preparing final report that encompasses all of the above preparations and results.

Advantages

White-box testing is one of the two biggest testing methodologies used today. It has several major advantages:

1.  Side effect of having the knowledge of the source code is beneficial to thorough testing.

2.  Optimization of code by revealing hidden errors and being able to remove these possible defects.

3.  Gives the programmer introspection because developers carefully describe any new implementation.

4.  Provides traceability of tests from the source, allowing future changes to the software to be easily captured in changes to the tests.

5.  White box tests are easy to automate.

6.  White box testing gives clear, engineering-based, rules for when to stop testing.

Disadvantages

Although white-box testing has great advantages, it is not perfect and contains some disadvantages:

1.  White-box testing brings complexity to testing because the tester must have knowledge of the program, including being a programmer. White-box testing requires a programmer with a high level of knowledge due to the complexity of the level of testing that needs to be done.[3]

2.  On some occasions, it is not realistic to be able to test every single existing condition of the application and some conditions will be untested.[3]

3.  The tests focus on the software as it exists, and missing functionality may not be discovered.

Black Box Testing

Black-box testing is a method of software testing that examines the functionality of an application without peering into its internal structures or workings. This method of test can be applied to virtually every level of software testing: unit, integration, system and acceptance. It typically comprises most if not all higher level testing, but can also dominate unit testing as well.

Test cases

Test cases are built around specifications and requirements, i.e., what the application is supposed to do. Test cases are generally derived from external descriptions of the software, including specifications, requirements and design parameters. Although the tests used are primarily functional in nature, non-functional tests may also be used. The test designer selects both valid and invalid inputs and determines the correct output, often with the help of an oracle or a previous result that is known to be good, without any knowledge of the test object's internal structure.

Test design techniques

Typical black-box test design techniques include:

·        Decision table testing

·        All-pairs testing

·        Equivalence partitioning

·        Boundary value analysis

·        Cause–effect graph

·        Error guessing

·        State transition testing

·        Use case testing

·        User story testing

·        Domain analysis

·        Combining technique

Visual testing

The aim of visual testing is to provide developers with the ability to examine what was happening at the point of software failure by presenting the data in such a way that the developer can easily ?nd the information she or he requires, and the information is expressed clearly

Visual testing provides a number of advantages. The quality of communication is increased drastically because testers can show the problem (and the events leading up to it) to the developer as opposed to just describing it and the need to replicate test failures will cease to exist in many cases. The developer will have all the evidence he or she requires of a test failure and can instead focus on the cause of the fault and how it should be fixed.

Grey-box testing

Grey-box testing involves having knowledge of internal data structures and algorithms for purposes of designing tests, while executing those tests at the user, or black-box level. The tester is not required to have full access to the software's source code. Manipulating input data and formatting output do not qualify as grey-box, because the input and output are clearly outside of the "black box" that we are calling the system under test. This distinction is particularly important when conducting integration testing between two modules of code written by two different developers, where only the interfaces are exposed for test. Typically, a grey-box tester will be permitted to set up an isolated testing environment with activities such as seeding a database. The tester can observe the state of the product being tested after performing certain actions.

Testing levels:

There are generally four recognized levels of tests: unit testing, integration testing, component interface testing, and system testing. Tests are frequently grouped by where they are added in the software development process, or by the level of specificity of the test. The main levels during the development process as defined by the SWEBOK guide are unit-, integration-, and system testing

There are two different levels of tests from the perspective of customers: low-level testing (LLT) and high-level testing (HLT). LLT is a group of tests for different level components of software application or product. HLT is a group of tests for the whole software application or product.

Unit testing

Unit testing, also known as component testing, refers to tests that verify the functionality of a specific section of code, usually at the function level. In an object-oriented environment, this is usually at the class level, and the minimal unit tests include the constructors and destructors.

Depending on the organization's expectations for software development, unit testing might include static code analysis, data-flow analysis, metrics analysis, peer code reviews, code coverage analysis and other software verification practices.

Integration testing

Integration testing is any type of software testing that seeks to verify the interfaces between components against a software design. Software components may be integrated in an iterative way or all together ("big bang").

Component interface testing

The practice of component interface testing can be used to check the handling of data passed between various units, or subsystem components, beyond full integration testing between those units. The data being passed can be considered as "message packets" and the range or data types can be checked, for data generated from one unit, and tested for validity before being passed into another unit. One option for interface testing is to keep a separate log file of data items being passed, often with a timestamp logged to allow analysis of thousands of cases of data passed between units for days or weeks. Tests can include checking the handling of some extreme data values while other interface variables are passed as normal values. Unusual data values in an interface can help explain unexpected performance in the next unit. Component interface testing is a variation of black-box testing with the focus on the data values beyond just the related actions of a subsystem component.

System testing

System testing, or end-to-end testing, tests a completely integrated system to verify that the system meets its requirements.

It can be at the end one phase or at the end of the project (based on my experience).

Operational Acceptance testing

Operational Acceptance is used to conduct operational readiness (pre-release) of a product, service or system as part of a quality management system. OAT is a common type of non-functional software testing, used mainly in software development and software maintenance projects. This type of testing focuses on the operational readiness of the system to be supported, and/or to become part of the production environment. Hence, it is also known as operational readiness testing (ORT) or Operations readiness and assurance (OR&A) testing. Functional testing within OAT is limited to those tests which are required to verify the non-functional aspects of the system.

In addition, the software testing should ensure that the portability of the system, as well as working as expected, does not also damage or partially corrupt its operating environment or cause other processes within that environment to become inoperative.

Testing types:

Installation testing

An installation test assures that the system is installed correctly and working at actual customer's hardware.

Compatibility testing

A common cause of software failure is a lack of its compatibility with other application software, operating systems (or operating system versions, old or new), or target environments that differ greatly from the original.

Smoke and sanity testing

Sanity testing determines whether it is reasonable to proceed with further testing.

Smoke testing consists of minimal attempts to operate the software, designed to determine whether there are any basic problems that will prevent it from working at all. Such tests can be used as build verification test.

Regression testing

Regression testing focuses on finding defects after a major code change has occurred. Specifically, it seeks to uncover software regressions, as degraded or lost features, including old bugs that have come back. Such regressions occur whenever software functionality that was previously working correctly, stops working as intended. Typically, regressions occur as an unintended consequence of program changes, when the newly developed part of the software collides with the previously existing code. Common methods of regression testing include re-running previous sets of test cases and checking whether previously fixed faults have re-emerged. The depth of testing depends on the phase in the release process and the risk of the added features. They can either be complete, for changes added late in the release or deemed to be risky, or be very shallow, consisting of positive tests on each feature, if the changes are early in the release or deemed to be of low risk. Regression testing is typically the largest test effort in commercial software development, due to checking numerous details in prior software features, and even new software can be developed while using some old test cases to test parts of the new design to ensure prior functionality is still supported.

Acceptance testing:

Acceptance testing can mean one of two things:

1.  A smoke test is used as an acceptance test prior to introducing a new build to the main testing process, i.e., before integration or regression.

2.  Acceptance testing performed by the customer, often in their lab environment on their own hardware, is known as user acceptance testing (UAT). Acceptance testing may be performed as part of the hand-off process between any two phases of development

Alpha testing

Alpha testing is simulated or actual operational testing by potential users/customers or an independent test team at the developers' site. Alpha testing is often employed for off-the-shelf software as a form of internal acceptance testing, before the software goes to beta testing.

Beta testing

Beta testing comes after alpha testing and can be considered a form of external user acceptance testing. Versions of the software, known as beta versions, are released to a limited audience outside of the programming team known as beta testers. The software is released to groups of people so that further testing can ensure the product has few faults or bugs. Beta versions can be made available to the open public to increase the feedback field to a maximal number of future users and to deliver value earlier, for an extended or even indefinite period of time (perpetual beta).

Functional vs non-functional testing

Functional testing refers to activities that verify a specific action or function of the code. These are usually found in the code requirements documentation, although some development methodologies work from use cases or user stories. Functional tests tend to answer the question of "can the user do this" or "does this particular feature work."

Non-functional testing refers to aspects of the software that may not be related to a specific function or user action, such as scalability or other performance, behavior under certain constraints, or security. Testing will determine the breaking point, the point at which extremes of scalability or performance leads to unstable execution. Non-functional requirements tend to be those that reflect the quality of the product, particularly in the context of the suitability perspective of its users.

Continuous testing

Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. Continuous testing includes the validation of both functional requirements and non-functional requirements; the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.

Destructive testing

Destructive testing attempts to cause the software or a sub-system to fail. It verifies that the software functions properly even when it receives invalid or unexpected inputs, thereby establishing the robustness of input validation and error-management.

Software performance testing

Performance testing is generally executed to determine how a system or sub-system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. It can also serve to investigate measure, validate or verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage.

There is little agreement on what the specific goals of performance testing are. The terms load testing, performance testing, scalability testing, and volume testing, are often used interchangeably.

Real-time software systems have strict timing constraints. To test if timing constraints are met, real-time testing is used.

Usability testing

Usability testing is to check if the user interface is easy to use and understand. It is concerned mainly with the use of the application.

Accessibility testing

Accessibility testing may include compliance with standards such as:

·        Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

·        Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

·        Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Security testing

Security testing is essential for software that processes confidential data to prevent system intrusion by hackers.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines this as a "type of testing conducted to evaluate the degree to which a test item, and associated data and information, are protected to that unauthorised persons or systems cannot use, read or modify them, and authorized persons or systems are not denied access to them.

Internationalization and localization

The general ability of software to be internationalized and localized can be automatically tested without actual translation, by using pseudo localization. It will verify that the application still works, even after it has been translated into a new language or adapted for a new culture (such as different currencies or time zones).

Actual translation to human languages must be tested, too. Possible localization failures include:

·        Software is often localized by translating a list of strings out of context, and the translator may choose the wrong translation for an ambiguous source string.

·        Technical terminology may become inconsistent if the project is translated by several people without proper coordination or if the translator is imprudent.

·        Literal word-for-word translations may sound inappropriate, artificial or too technical in the target language.

·        Untranslated messages in the original language may be left hard coded in the source code.

·        Some messages may be created automatically at run time and the resulting string may be ungrammatical, functionally incorrect, misleading or confusing.

·        Software may use a keyboard shortcut which has no function on the source language's keyboard layout, but is used for typing characters in the layout of the target language.

·        Software may lack support for the character encoding of the target language.

·        Fonts and font sizes which are appropriate in the source language may be inappropriate in the target language; for example, CJK characters may become unreadable if the font is too small.

·        A string in the target language may be longer than the software can handle. This may make the string partly invisible to the user or cause the software to crash or malfunction.

·        Software may lack proper support for reading or writing bi-directional text.

·        Software may display images with text that was not localized.

·        Localized operating systems may have differently named system configuration files and environment variable sand different formats for date and currency.

Development testing

Development Testing is a software development process that involves synchronized application of a broad spectrum of defect prevention and detection strategies in order to reduce software development risks, time, and costs. It is performed by the software developer or engineer during the construction phase of the software development lifecycle. Rather than replace traditional QA focuses, it augments it. Development Testing aims to eliminate construction errors before code is promoted to QA; this strategy is intended to increase the quality of the resulting software as well as the efficiency of the overall development and QA process.

Depending on the organization's expectations for software development, Development Testing might include static code analysis, data flow analysis, metrics analysis, peer code reviews, unit testing, code coverage analysis, traceability, and other software verification practices.

A/B testing

A/B testing is basically a comparison of two outputs, generally when only one variable has changed: run a test, change one thing, run the test again, compare the results. This is more useful with more small-scale situations, but very useful in fine-tuning any program.

Concurrent testing

In concurrent testing, the focus is on the performance while continuously running with normal input and under normal operational conditions, as opposed to stress testing, or fuzz testing. Memory leak, as well as basic faults are easier to find with this method.

Conformance testing or type testing

In software testing, conformance testing verifies that a product performs according to its specified standards. Compilers, for instance, are extensively tested to determine whether they meet the recognized standard for that language.

Testing process

Traditional waterfall development model

A common practice of software testing is that testing is performed by an independent group of testers after the functionality is developed, before it is shipped to the customer. This practice often results in the testing phase being used as a project buffer to compensate for project delays, thereby compromising the time devoted to testing.

Another practice is to start software testing at the same moment the project starts and it is a continuous process until the project finishes.

Agile or Extreme development model

In contrast, some emerging software disciplines such as extreme programming and the agile software development movement, adhere to a "test-driven software development" model. In this process, unit tests are written first, by the software engineers Then as code is written it passes incrementally larger portions of the test suites. The test suites are continuously updated as new failure conditions and corner cases are discovered, and they are integrated with any regression tests that are developed. Unit tests are maintained along with the rest of the software source code and generally integrated into the build process (with inherently interactive tests being relegated to a partially manual build acceptance process). The ultimate goal of this test process is to achieve continuous integration where software updates can be published to the public frequently. 

This methodology increases the testing effort done by development, before reaching any formal testing team. In some other development models, most of the test execution occurs after the requirements have been defined and the coding process has been completed.

Top-down and bottom-up

Bottom Up Testing is an approach to integrated testing where the lowest level components are tested first, then integrated and used to facilitate the testing of higher level components. After the integration testing of lower level integrated modules, the next level of modules will be formed and can be used for integration testing. The process is repeated until the components at the top of the hierarchy are tested. This approach is helpful only when all or most of the modules of the same development level are ready. This method also helps to determine the levels of software developed and makes it easier to report testing progress in the form of a percentage.

Top Down Testing is an approach to integrated testing where the top integrated modules are tested and the branch of the module is tested step by step until the end of the related module.

In both, method stubs and drivers are used to stand-in for missing components and are replaced as the levels are completed.

A sample testing cycle

Although variations exist between organizations, there is a typical cycle for testing. The sample below is common among organizations employing the Waterfall development model. The same practices are commonly found in other development models, but might not be as clear or explicit.

·        Requirements analysis: Testing should begin in the requirements phase of the software development life cycle. During the design phase, testers work to determine what aspects of a design are testable and with what parameters those tests work.

·        Test planning: Test strategy, test plan, testbed creation. Since many activities will be carried out during testing, a plan is needed.

·        Test development: Test procedures, test scenarios, test cases, test datasets, test scripts to use in testing software.

·        Test execution: Testers execute the software based on the plans and test documents then report any errors found to the development team.

·        Test reporting: Once testing is completed, testers generate metrics and make final reports on their test effort and whether or not the software tested is ready for release.

·        Test result analysis: Or Defect Analysis, is done by the development team usually along with the client, in order to decide what defects should be assigned, fixed, rejected (i.e. found software working properly) or deferred to be dealt with later.

·        Defect Retesting: Once a defect has been dealt with by the development team, it is retested by the testing team. AKA  Resolution testing.

·        Regression testing: It is common to have a small test program built of a subset of tests, for each integration of new, modified, or fixed software, in order to ensure that the latest delivery has not ruined anything, and that the software product as a whole is still working correctly.

·        Test Closure: Once the test meets the exit criteria, the activities such as capturing the key outputs, lessons learned, results, logs, documents related to the project are archived and used as a reference for future projects.

Test Automation:

In software testing, test automation is the use of special software (separate from the software being tested) to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes.[1] Test automation can automate some repetitive but necessary tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or perform additional testing that would be difficult to do manually. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing.

Some software testing tasks, such as extensive low-level interface regression testing, can be laborious and time-consuming to do manually. In addition, a manual approach might not always be effective in finding certain classes of defects. Test automation offers a possibility to perform these types of testing effectively. Once automated tests have been developed, they can be run quickly and repeatedly. Many times, this can be a cost-effective method for regression testing of software products that have a long maintenance life. Even minor patches over the lifetime of the application can cause existing features to break which were working at an earlier point in time.

There are many approaches to test automation, however below are the general approaches used widely:

·        Graphical user interface testing. A testing framework that generates user interface events such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, and observes the changes that result in the user interface, to validate that the observable behavior of the program is correct.

·        API driven testing. A testing framework that uses a programming interface to the application to validate the behaviour under test. Typically API driven testing bypasses application user interface altogether. It can also be testing public (usually) interfaces to classes, modules or libraries are tested with a variety of input arguments to validate that the results that are returned are correct.

Test automation tools can be expensive, and are usually employed in combination with manual testing. Test automation can be made cost-effective in the long term, especially when used repeatedly in regression testing.

Continuous testing

Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. For Continuous Testing, the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.

What to test

Testing tools can help automate tasks such as product installation, test data creation, GUI interaction, problem detection (consider parsing or polling agents equipped with oracles, defect logging, etc., without necessarily automating tests in an end-to-end fashion.

One must keep satisfying popular requirements when thinking of test automation:

·        Platform and OS independence

·        Data driven capability (Input Data, Output Data, Metadata)

·        Customizable Reporting (DB Data Base Access, Crystal Reports)

·        Easy debugging and logging

·        Version control friendly – minimal binary files

·        Extensible & Customizable (Open APIs to be able to integrate with other tools)

·        Common Driver (For example, in the Java development ecosystem, that means Ant or Maven and the popular IDEs). This enables tests to integrate with the developers' workflows.

·        Support unattended test runs for integration with build processes and batch runs. Continuous integration servers require this.

·        Email Notifications like bounce messages

·        Support distributed execution environment (distributed test bed)

·        Distributed application support (distributed SUT)

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