independence of testing
Separation of responsibilities, which encourages the accomplishment of objective testing
A measure that can be used to estimate or predict another measure
A review not based on a formal (documented) procedure.
indicator
A review not based on a formal (documented) procedure
informal review
Separation of responsibilities, which encourages the accomplishment of objective testing.
An instance of an input
input
A variable (whether stored within a component or outside) that is read by a component
inspection
The process of combining components or systems into larger assemblies
A type of peer review that relies on visual examination of documents to detect defects, e.g., violations of development standards and non-conformance to higher level documentation. The most formal review technique and therefore always based on a documented procedure.
An integration test type that is concerned with testing the interfaces between components or systems
installation guide
Supplied instructions on any suitable media, which guides the installer through the installation process. This may be a manual guide, step-by-step procedure, installation wizard, or any other similar process description.
The capability of the software product to interact with one or more specified components or systems.
integration
The process of combining components or systems into larger assemblies.
Testing performed to expose defects in the interfaces and in the interactions between integrated components or systems
An integration test type that is concerned with testing the interfaces between components or systems.
integration testing
Interface testing
The capability of the software product to interact with one or more specified components or systems
Interoperability
Testing using input values that should be rejected by the component or system
Interoperability testing Synonyms: compatibility testing
Testing to determine the interoperability of a software product.
invalid testing See Also: error tolerance, negative testing
A test plan that typically addresses one test level.
Iterative development model
A type of performance testing conducted to evaluate the behavior of a component or system with increasing load, e.g., numbers of parallel users and/or numbers of transactions, to determine what load can be handled by the component or system.
A development lifecycle where a project is broken into a usually large number of iterations. An iteration is a complete development loop resulting in a release (internal or external) of an executable product, a subset of the final product under development, which grows from iteration to iteration to become the final product.
keyword-driven testing Synonyms: action word-driven testing
A scripting technique that uses data files to contain not only test data and expected results, but also keywords related to the application being tested. The keywords are interpreted by special supporting scripts that are called by the control script for the test.
level test plan
A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities.
A test plan that typically addresses one test level
A test plan that typically addresses multiple test levels.
load testing
Testing to determine the performance of a software product
Maintainability
Modification of a software product after delivery to correct defects, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a modified environment.
The ease with which a software product can be modified to correct defects, modified to meet new requirements, modified to make future maintenance easier, or adapted to a changed environment
Testing the changes to an operational system or the impact of a changed environment to an operational system
maintainability testing Synonyms: serviceability testing
The ease with which a software product can be modified to correct defects, modified to meet new requirements, modified to make future maintenance easier, or adapted to a changed environment.
Testing to determine the maintainability of a software product
Maintenance
Modification of a software product after delivery to correct defects, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a modified environment
Testing the changes to an operational system or the impact of a changed environment to an operational system.
Maintenance testing
Testing to determine the maintainability of a software product.
Master test plan
A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities. It identifies amongst others test items, the features to be tested, the testing tasks, who will do each task, degree of tester independence
Maturity
The capability of an organization with respect to the effectiveness and efficiency of its processes and work practices. (2) The capability of the software product to avoid failure as a result of defects in the software
A structured collection of elements that describe certain aspects of maturity in an organization, and aid in the definition and understanding of an organization's processes. A maturity model often provides a common language, shared vision and framework for prioritizing improvement actions.
The number or category assigned to an attribute of an entity by making a measurement
Maturity model
The number or category assigned to an attribute of an entity by making a measurement.
The process of assigning a number or category to an entity to describe an attribute of that entity.
Measure
The process of assigning a number or category to an entity to describe an attribute of that entity
measurement
A point in time in a project at which defined (intermediate) deliverables and results should be ready.
memory leak
A memory access failure due to a defect in a program's dynamic store allocation logic that causes it to fail to release memory after it has finished using it, eventually causing the program and/or other concurrent processes to fail due to lack of memory.
metric
A measurement scale and the method used for measurement.
Milestone
A point in time in a project at which defined (intermediate) deliverables and results should be ready
A tool that supports the creation, amendment and verification of models of the software or system
Modeling tool
A tool that supports the creation, amendment and verification of models of the software or system.
A software tool or hardware device that runs concurrently with the component or system under test and supervises, records and/or analyzes the behavior of the component or system.
Moderator
The leader and main person responsible for an inspection or review process.(2) A neutral person who conducts a usability test session.
The percentage of combinations of all single condition outcomes within one statement that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% multiple condition coverage implies 100% modified condition / decision coverage.
Monitoring tool
A requirement that does not relate to functionality, but to attributes such as reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability
multiple condition coverage Synonyms: branch condition combination coverage , condition combination coverage
Testing the attributes of a component or system that do not relate to functionality, e.g., reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability.
A software tool that is available to all potential users in source code form, usually via the internet. Its users are permitted, usually under license, to study, change, improve and, at times, to distribute the software.
non-functional requirement
A requirement that does not relate to functionality, but to attributes such as reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability.
non-functional testing
Operational testing in the acceptance test phase, typically performed in a (simulated) operational environment by operations and/or systems administration staff focusing on operational aspects, e.g., recoverability, resource-behavior, installability and technical compliance.
Open source tool
The representation of a distinct set of tasks performed by the component or system, possibly based on user behavior when interacting with the component or system, and their probabilities of occurrence. A task is logical rather that physical and can be executed over several machines or be executed in non-contiguous time segments.
operational acceptance testing Synonyms: production acceptance testing
Operational testing in the acceptance test phase, typically performed in a (simulated) operational environment by operations and/or systems administration staff focusing on operational aspects, e.g., recoverability, resource-behavior, installability and technical compliance
Testing conducted to evaluate a component or system in its operational environment.
operational profile
A variable (whether stored within a component or outside) that is written by a component.
output
A variable (whether stored within a component or outside) that is read by a component.
pair programming
A test is deemed to pass if its actual result matches its expected result.
A software development approach whereby lines of code (production and/or test) of a component are written by two programmers sitting at a single computer. This implicitly means ongoing real-time code reviews are performed.
pass
A test is deemed to fail if its actual result does not match its expected result.
Path Synonyms: control flow path
The task of analyzing, e.g., identifying performance bottlenecks based on generated metrics, and tuning the performance of a software component or system using tools
A sequence of events, e.g., executable statements, of a component or system from an entry point to an exit point.
