Speeding up software testing
Tanmay Vora
How do we do that ? Barbara on Business Analyst Blog has an answer – “Write Better Requirements“.
This post throws up a very fundamental question : “If you don’t have excellent requirements, how do you evaluate the software’s ability to address the business problem?”
Poor requirement definition by the stakeholders and poor understanding (and hence documentation) of requirements by the development team are two major reasons why testers take so much time in testing (and also why so many software projects fail).
Everyone has suggestions about how to improve your testing—implement a testing process or methodology, utilize IEEE standards, work towards CMMI compliance, etc. No one mentions that improving requirements will improve testing!
Without testable and verifiable requirements, testing is always a difficult and time consuming job.
Certainly for development of web applications the best way to accurately capture verifiable requirements is by prototyping or simulation of the apps. Software from companies like Simunication and iRise facilitate this approach. The trend to simulation is irresistible as users understandably get hooked on it.