Advanced Testing of Systems-of-Systems, Volume 1

4Testing Methodologies

Test policies and strategies will rely on the implementation of test methodologies to achieve their objectives. Several software application testing methodologies exist. A test methodology describes the method that will be used to execute the test activities in a certain order in order to achieve the expected objectives: an application – or a system-of-systems – that achieves its objectives. Note that we do not say “defined in the requirements” because some requirements may be implicit or implied.

The test methodology must be able to explain the activities to be performed and their scheduling, with enough clarity to remove ambiguities and identify incoming and outgoing deliverables. The methodology will be developed in the Test Plan and/or in the Test Strategy.

4.1. Risk-based tests (RBT)

The principle of the risk-based testing (RBT) method is to identify and prioritize – during risk analysis – product risks. These risks will then be dealt with in decreasing order of priority, so that if the project has to be interrupted before all the identified risks have been dealt with, only the lower priority risks will remain to be dealt with.

Risk analyses will also identify “project” risks, that is, instances where the test project itself is subject to risk. These risks, just like the inter-project dependencies, should be anticipated in order to be able to plan mitigation activities, to reduce the impact or the probability of occurrence of the risk.

The risk-based ...