JSU MCIS
Software Engineering
Validation Testing and Software Testing Plans
The Software Testing Plan, as developed here, is not a standard document during
software development but there will be several very important documents developed
covering both Software Quality Assurance and Verification and Validation. This
document is intended to start students thinking about a formal approach to testing.
Essentially, Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is one of the “umbrella” activities that
permeate the software development process. It starts by having a good process and by
adhering to the process and product standards that are established as part of that process.
An essential part, but only a part, of this process is a formal testing plan that will be
designed, documented, implemented and audited as part of the process. This testing is
covered by the Software Verification and Validation (SV&V) part of SQA. In addition to
testing, document and code reviews are essential to SV&V.
In this course, we plan testing at two times. When the product is specified, knowledge of
how it will be tested will help us to articulate requirements in a more testable manner as
well as helping to identify problems. This encompasses the top-level system testing
which finishes verification and is part of the acceptance testing that constitutes validation.
When we design entities that will collaborate to provide the functionalities of our
product, we must be able to test them in isolation to assure that each works correctly.
This also helps us check on the quality of the documentation of the units.
The document described here has been developed over the years from many sources. It is
inspired by 1008-1987 (R1993) IEEE Standard for Software Unit Testing, 1012-1998
IEEE Standard for Software Verification and Validation, and 829-1998 IEEE Standard
for Software Test Documentation but is much more prescriptive than those
recommendations. It is specified at the level that might be required by a particular
software development firm.
The Validation testing document is developed in conjunction with the
analysis/specification activity. The document is reopened at design time to add test plans
for design entities. Testing is a very massive undertaking in planning as well as in doing.
To keep the assignment more under control, we only require illustrative tests to be
developed and documented.
This document is accompanied by several supplementary documents. The first document,
titled General Information, details how to create and update a document such as the STP.
In addition, there is a Validation Template for this first part of the assignment. A
Validation Example accompanies it. For the last part of the assignment, there are three
documents: a handout on Testing Strategies, a Software Testing Plan Template and a
Software Testing Plan Example. The templates and example are actually the same
documents augmented at a later time in the project. Reopening a document to
supplement it is a standard activity in software development.