Assignment: An investigation of software development, testing standards, and test management software

Purpose:

The purpose of the assignment is to help you to:-
- improve your research and comprehension skills
- develop a good understanding of professional industry standards for software testing
- appreciate the value of various processes and methods used in industry to test and evaluate software systems
- getting familiar with various well-known test management software

Introduction:

According to Standards Australia:

"Standards are published documents setting out specifications and procedures designed to ensure products, services and systems are safe, reliable and consistently perform the way they were intended to. They establish a common language which defines quality and safety criteria."

There are several standards, international and national, that relate specifically to software testing. Standards formalize industry best practice and they are agreed upon by professionals in the industry in which the standards apply to. This assignment is an investigation into those standards.

According to Wikipedia, "Test management tools are used to store information on how testing is to be done, plan testing activities and report the status of quality assurance activities. The tools have different approaches to testing and thus have different sets of features. Generally, they are used to maintain and plan manual testing, run or gather execution data from automated tests, manage multiple environments and to enter information about found defects. Test management tools offer the prospect of streamlining the testing process and allow quick access to data analysis, collaborative tools and easy communication across multiple project teams." This assignment also aims to introduce the students to various well-known Test Management Tools.

Assignment tasks:

You will need to:

Part-A: Software development and testing standards

- locate two current documents for one national standard and one international standard that relate to software testing
- research, comprehend and analyze each document to find relevant details to answer a set of questions, and
- prepare a written summary report of findings

Commence your search for standards at the Federation University website. There is a listing of Databases A- Z which has a link for Australian Standards Online.
Note: If you are on campus, just clicking on the link will send you through to the database.
If you are off-campus, you will need to authenticate with your logon details

Your search should target published standards, not drafts. You can include any of the following but you are not limited to:
- AS/NZS ISO/IEC 9126.1:2005
Software engineering - Product quality - Quality model
- ISO/IEC 12119:1994
Information technology - Software packages - Quality requirements and testing
- AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062:2006
Software engineering - Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) - Common Industry Format (CIF) for usability test reports
- ISO 829 Software documentation standards
- IEEE 12027
- ISO 25000 series

Select and research one Australian and one international standard relating to software testing to ascertain the answers to the following questions. Be sure to check appendices in these documents as they can be very helpful. Your answers should illustrate a good understanding of the standard documents you select.

For each standard
- What is the standard name?
- Who holds the copyright for the standard?
- Amongst the acknowledged contributors to the document, which universities were involved (if any)?
- What is the scope or intent of the standard?
- What are the key terms and understandings needed for the standard to be understood and applied?
- In your own words, what does the application of the standard result in? Or in other words, what does the standard do?

- Finally, what specific relevance to software testing is the standard?

Make a comparison of the two standards.
- Relate any commonalities between your two selected standards
- Highlight any significant differences in their approach and applications.

Part-B: Test Management Tool
You have to present a comparative analysis between any two of the following Test Management Tools:
- Test Rail
- Qtest platform
- QA Symphony
- Zephyr
- Test Collab
- XQual
- Plutora
- Spira Test

The analysis should include:
- Common features
- Special features

The student should create the free account in both the selected tools to explore thoroughly.

Prepare a report of no more than 2,000 words answering all questions. The report should have the following structure.
- an introduction to standards and a brief description of the two standards researched
- responses to questions for each standard
- listing and a discussion of commonalities and differences between the two standards
- listing the common and special features of two selected test management tools
- a conclusion summarizing the report findings

Attachment:- Assignment.rar