Test management from requirements to tracking operational practices _ Software Testing

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Demand tracking is a high-level management activity, which aims to better manage the state of demand and to better analyze the impact of changes in requirements. While the implementation of demand tracking can bring good benefits, the amount of work required is enormous. Therefore, it is not recommended to introduce requirement tracking activities when the requirements definition, requirements development and requirements management are not very smooth. 1.1 Basic concepts of requirement tracking

Requirement tracking is the establishment of traces of dependencies and logical connections between individual requirements and other system elements. These elements include: various types of requirements, business rules, system architecture, design components, source code, test cases, and help documents. Specifically, the requirement tracking involves 5 types of tracking chains:

Generally, the revenue of demand tracking is reflected in the following aspects, which belong to the higher-order management benefits:

Audit: Tracking information can help audit to ensure that all requirements are applied.

Change Impact Analysis: tracking information when adding or deleting changes to requirements, you can ensure that each affected system element is not ignored.

Maintenance: Reliable tracking information enables the correct and complete implementation of changes during maintenance to improve productivity.

Project tracking: Careful record of tracking data, can make the plan the current implementation status.

Redesign: Lists the features that will be replaced in traditional systems, documenting their requirements in the new system and their location in the software components.

Demand tracking is a higher level of management activities, the required workload is very large, especially the software requirements to the design elements of the tracking, so must consider the investment and income is proportional.

1.1.1 User requirements to software requirements tracking

Tracking chain the first category is the user needs to the software requirements tracking, the workload is moderate, and the benefits of project management is obvious, it is recommended to have time to achieve such tracking.

1.1.1.1 purpose: To ensure that all the user's original requirements are met.

1.1.1.2 Benefits:

Developers are able to pinpoint the underlying requirements when they are implemented.

can provide firsthand evidence of the need for software requirements.

It is easy to find contradictions and ambiguities between needs.

1.1.1.2 specific means: in the sixth chapter of the requirements analysis and modeling best practice is introduced to a method, that is, the user's original requirements identified by a sentence directly into the software requirements of the use case.

1.1.2 Software Requirements to software requirements tracking

The second category in the tracking chain is the software requirements to the software requirements tracking, such tracking workload is small, the benefits of requirements management is very clear, such tracking should be the most established.

1.1.2.1 Main content:

"Project objectives, stakeholder focus on tracking software requirements.

"Related software requirements for tracking.

1.1.2.2 Purpose: To ensure project objectives, stakeholder concerns are implemented.

1.1.2.3 Benefits:

To better understand the meaning of the implementation of software requirements.

To better handle the logical correlation between software requirements.

1.1.2.4 specific means: For project objectives, stakeholder focus, create a unique number, through the table or link method to achieve tracking.

1.1.3 Software requirements to downstream work product tracking

The third category in the tracking chain is the tracking of software requirements to downstream work products (System architecture, design components, source code, test cases, help files, etc.). This type of tracking is obvious to the benefit of change management, but the workload is so great that such traces should be used with caution.

1.1.3.1 Objective: To maintain the relationship between software requirements and design elements and test elements.

1.1.3.2 Benefits:

Can obtain more accurate evaluation results when analyzing the technical impact of change.

Can better isolate the impact of change.

1.1.3.3 specific means: Manually update or through configuration management software to implement the update. 1.2 Operation method of requirement tracking

To track requirements, you must define a unique identity for each requirement. In the actual operation process, mainly has the table method and the link list method two kind of tracking strategy.

1.2.1 Table method

When you use the requirements tracking matrix, you are not able to fill out the information until you have made a plan and do not do the work, and you must complete the work and validate it before filling in the information.

1.2.2 Linked List method

The linked list method is mainly used for specific software, such as requirements management tools Telelogic DOORS. 1.3 Summary

Whenever you talk about demand tracking activities, there is always a sentence as the core: requirements development activities are necessary, requirements management activities are optional. Because any management activity is cost-effective, we must do a good job of cost-benefit analysis, rather than having all the management activities in place is the best.

We can according to the project, personnel, the characteristics of the team, select some significant, high-value projects to do needs tracking, or even within a project, select a part of the requirements for tracking; In addition, you should select the appropriate requirements management tools to reduce the workload of tracking requirements.