Abstract:
CMMI for Development Version 1.2 is a collection of best practices intended to guide the development of products and services. Since software is one of the product categories targeted by CMMI, it would be reasonable to assume that at least some of its advice would be specific to software testing.
However, a detailed scan of the text of CMMI reveals that very little of its content is drawn from the common vocabulary of software testing. For example, “system test” is not mentioned, “test plan” is mentioned twice and “test case” only four times.
Based on this evidence alone, it would be reasonable to assume that the CMMI had no relevance to software testing and thus ignores one of the fundamental disciplines of software engineering. In reality, this could not be further from the truth. This paper demonstrates the relevance of CMMI to software testing by mapping the concepts and the language of CMMI to an accepted glossary of software testing terms.
The paper starts by identifying which CMMI process areas are relevant to software testing. It then moves on to explain how the Risk Management (RSKM) process area can be applied to the development of test plans and concludes by describing how the Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR) process area can guide an analysis of test incident reports.
Keywords
Causal analysis, CMMI, risk analysis, risk-based testing, software process, software testing, test planning
Presenter Profile:
Phil Robinson, Principle Consultant, Lonsdale Systems, Australia
 Phil Robinson has worked with information technology for more than thirty years. During his lengthy career, he has been involved in the planning, analysis and implementation of a diverse range of business, engineering, scientific and technical information systems.
Phil is an experienced workshop facilitator and has led numerous workshops in the course of his consulting assignments. He has extensive training experience, earning a reputation as a lucid and knowledgeable presenter. Phil has presented training courses for clients in Australia, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore Taiwan and Thailand.
As well as presenting courses, Phil has authored numerous courses for industry and three University units. Earlier in his career, he wrote two books on programming Apple computers. The books were published in a number of countries including the USA, UK and as translations in Germany and France. More recently, Phil has co-authored two award-winning articles describing an original organisational theory and a chapter for a book on enterprise architecture.
Phil has a degree in Electrical Engineering and has trained as a Group Work Leader. |
