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Pertaining to my earlier articles on Software Testing, further to the discussion let us review some standards like IEEE, BSI etc.

The first is IEEE 829 test design specification, the test design specification describes a collection of test cases and the test conditions at a high level, the template include the following sections as mentioned below.

• Test Design Specification Identifier.
• Features to be tested.
• Approach refinements (Specific Techniques, tools, etc.)
• Test identification
• Feature pass/Fail Criteria

The collection of test cases outlined in the test design specification is often called a test suite.

Next is ISO 9126 quality standard for software defines six software quality characteristics: functionality, reliability, usability, efficiency, maintainability and portability. We can use ISO 9126 to organize the risk items and the other part of risk assessment is determining the level of the risk.

In ISTQB glossary Test design is defined as the process of transforming general testing objectives into tangible test conditions and test cases and test implementation is the process of developing and prioritizing test procedures, creating test data and optionally preparing test harnesses and writing automated test scripts.

The British Standard Institute (BSI) the BS 7925/2 this standard reviews a wide range of techniques including the black box and white box technique. It covers statement testing, branch and decision testing. It also covers the additional white box techniques which are given below.

• Data flow testing
• Branch condition testing
• Branch Condition Combination testing
• Modified condition decision testing
• Linear code sequence and jump testing.

In IEEE 1044 standard of defect life cycle consists of four steps

• Step 1: Recognition. Recognition occurs when we observe an anomaly, that observation being an incident which is a potential defect this can occur in any phase of the software lifecycle.
• Step 2: Investigation –After Recognition Investigation of the incident occurs.
• Step 3: Action-The results of the investigation trigger the action step we might decide to resolve the defect. If the defect is resolved regression testing and confirmation testing should occur.
• Step 4: Disposition –Here we are principally interested in capturing further information and moving the incident into a terminal state.

Finally IEEE 1028 the standard used for review and Audit which consists of Technical Participations by Managers on the review of the test design and brainstorming on auditing the testing process of the application Concerned.

The Author Suresh V. Menon is a Subject Matter Expert on ERP and has over 22 years of work experience in the IT Industry, he can be contacted at testconsultants@outlook.com for queries and comments.