'Good' Organisational Reasons for 'Bad' Software Testing: An Ethnographic Study of Testing in a Small Software Company

Martin, D. and Rooksby, J. and Rouncefield, M. and Sommerville, I. (2007) 'Good' Organisational Reasons for 'Bad' Software Testing: An Ethnographic Study of Testing in a Small Software Company. In: Software Engineering, 2007. ICSE 2007. 29th International Conference on. IEEE, pp. 602-611. ISBN 0-7695-2828-7

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Abstract

In this paper we report on an ethnographic study of a small software house to discuss the practical work of software testing. Through use of two rich descriptions, we discuss that 'rigour' in systems integration testing necessarily has to be organisationally defined. Getting requirements 'right', defining 'good' test scenarios and ensuring 'proper' test coverage are activities that need to be pragmatically achieved taking account of organisational realities and constraints such as: the dynamics of customer relationships; using limited effort in an effective way; timing software releases; and creating a market. We discuss how these organisational realities shape (1) requirements testing; (2) test coverage; (3) test automation; and (4) test scenario design.

Item Type:
Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/libraryofcongress/qa75
Subjects:
?? COMPUTING, COMMUNICATIONS AND ICTQA75 ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS. COMPUTER SCIENCE ??
ID Code:
57380
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
05 Oct 2012 10:28
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
21 Sep 2023 03:44