QW2001 Paper 8M1 Ms. Sandy Sweeney (Compuware Corporation) Risky Business -- Adding Risk Assessment To The Test Planning Process

Key Points

• Move away from the 'we did the best we could' dysfunctional model of testing
• When picking and choosing the tests you can pull off in the allotted time - how can you know you are picking the right ones?
• Getting everyone - not just the test group - to understand and be involved in making these tradeoffs

Presentation Abstract

Testing is clearly a tool for risk management. The ability to use the results of test execution as a measure of the (relative) quality of an application under test is obvious. However, the typical metrics and measures are implemented during the Test Execution phase and look at the application as a whole. In the real world, however, it is clear that not all parts of an application are equally important, or equally buggy and that Test Managers are often frustrated by time and resource constraints that put them at a disadvantage in completing their assessment of product quality.

About the Author

Ms. Sweeney has been a Software Engineering Professional since 1976. She has been involved all aspects of systems engineering and software development, including management. She has functioned as Programmer, Analyst, Designer, Tester, Quality Assurance Engineer, and Project Manager for a wide range of companies in the Manufacturing, Financial, Health/Medical, Transportation, Retail/Wholesale and Telecommunications industries. She has extensive experience in Software Engineering methods and practices and has been involved in software development on a wide range of hardware and software platforms.