International Software Testing Standard

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Software Testing
Name
Date

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Q. What is the standard name?
A. The standard to be discussed is the International Software Testing Standard
ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119. The ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 is a globally concurred set of norms for
programming testing that can be utilized inside any product improvement life cycle or association
(Laporte & O'Connor, 2015, p. 34). By actualizing these norms, you will receive the main globally
perceived and concurred models for programming testing, which will give your association a great
way to deal with testing that can be conveyed all through the world (Garcia, Dávila, & Pessoa,
2014, p.85).Under the ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119, there are five standards as listed below;
 ISO/IEC 29119-1: Concepts & Definitions (promulgated in September 2013)
 ISO/IEC 29119-3: Test Documentation (promulgated in September 2013)
 ISO/IEC 29119-2: Test Processes (promulgated in September 2013)
 ISO/IEC 29119-5: Keyword Driven Testing ( promulgated in 2015)
 ISO/IEC 29119-4: Test Techniques ( promulgated in late 2014) (Reid, 2014)
Q. Who holds the copyright for the standard?
A. The Software Testing Standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 is not held by anybody as a patent,
but is an internationally agreed software quality testing standard developed by the IEEE (Reid,
2014).
Q. Amongst the acknowledged contributors to the document, which universities were
involved (if any)?
A. Being an industry standard collaboration, so far, only national standards bodies such as
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Ecma International, International
Council of systems Engineering (INCOSE), International telecommunications Union (ITU), and
countries such as Argentina, Belgium, Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, Czech Republic, among
others (Felderer & Schieferdecker, 2014, p. 563)
Q. What is the scope or intent of the standard?
A. The scope of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 is the establishment of generic framework to be
used for reviewing any works such as project execution plans, design documents, requirements
specifications, and test plans to be used by all interested parties involved in the process of software
and systems industry. The standard is to be used for the purposes of planning, managing, and
reviewing software products. The ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 define a generic process, tasks, activities,
and review techniques as well as their associated documentation that are used during the review of a

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software product. The project is intended for use by software testers and test managers, project
managers, quality managers, development managers, developers, business analysts, and all entities
involved in the process of developing software (and hardware) systems. The standard covers
reviews of software to include tasks such as inspections of software, walk through’s, and technical
software reviews. Further, its scope is not just to define specific types of reviews; it presents a
generic framework that defines typical characteristics/ attributes for a software for all types and
kinds of reviews so that users can map the attributes in defining specific types of reviews (EuroSPI
(Conference), Stolfa, Stolfa, O'Connor, & Messnarz, 2017, p. 592)
Q. What are key terms and understandings needed for the standard to be understood
and applied?
A. In order to use the software, key terms and understandings needed for the standard to be
understood and applied effectively, the users must understand its basic tenets and concept. Users
must have an understanding of the concepts and definitions under the standard, which are defined
under ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-1 that was published in 2013; the standard defines all standards and
concepts in the 29119 series including an introduction to software testing, role of testing in software
verification, software testing I an organizational or project context, generic testing processes, risk
based testing, test sub processes, test practices, automation testing, and how to manage defects. A
user must also have the requisite knowledge of the software testing documentation process which
are explicitly defined for the standard under document ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3, which was
published in 2013. Under documentation process, the user must understand the organizational test
process documentation, how to document the software testing process, and the documentation for
dynamic test processes for software (Henderson-Sellers, Gonzalez-Perez, McBride, & Low, 2014,
p. 567). The user must also have the requisite knowledge of the recommended processes for
software testing, which are also defined for the standard under ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-2. The user
must understand the test policies and strategies specific to a given organization, the method for
managing testing, and dynamic testing procedures.
Users also need to know and understand techniques for testing software; these are also
described for the standard under ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 -4 published in 2014. A user requires to
know specification based techniques for testing, structure based techniques for testing, and
experience based techniques for testing (Ruy, Falbo, Barcellos, Guizzardi, & Quirino, 2015, p. 29).
The user must also have an understanding and knowledge of keyword driven techniques for testing
as defined for the standard in ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-5, published in 2015; the user must know and
understand how to undertake keyword driven software testing and how to apply it, know roles and

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tasks, keyword driven testing frameworks, and data interchange. Finally, a user wishing to use the
ISO/IEC/IEEE 291119 standard must be acquainted with how to assess tests after conducting them,
as defined in ISO/IEC 333063 where the model for assessing software testing us defined
(Matalonga, Rodrigues, & Travassos, 2015, p. 38).
Q. In your own words, what does application of the standard result in? Or in other
words, what does the standard do?
A. The ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 software quality testing standard is a set of globally defined
documents that address the concepts, procedures, methods (techniques), technologies, documents,
and terms to use in the process of testing various software and software systems. At present, it has
five parts that define how software is to be tested (the process, methods, and means of reviewing).
The standard, apart from being used in testing the software, also applies to the software
environment, its domain, and the organization and can be used in testing various software life-
cycles and testing methods. As such, the software provides a framework, method, and means of
evaluating the testing process to ascertain software quality that can be adapted to any type of
software or testing environment and type
Q. Finally, what specific relevance to software testing is the standard?
A. In software engineering and design, the quality of software is important in meeting user
requirements, as well as ensuring it is safe to use; in the context of software, software quality relates
to the functional quality of software and the structural quality of software. The former alludes to
how well a software conforms to, or complies with a given design that are determined by its
functional requirements and specifications. The latter alludes to how well the software meets non
functional requirements that support delivery of the software functional requirements; for instance
robustness and ability to be maintained. The ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 standard enables these aspects to
be evaluated for determining the overall quality of software

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References
EuroSPI (Conference), Stolfa, J., Stolfa, S., O'Connor, R. V., & Messnarz, R. (Eds.). (2017).
Systems, software and services process improvement: 24th European Conference, EuroSPI
2017, Ostrava, Czech Republic, September 6-8, 2017, Proceedings. Heidelberg: Springer
International AG.
Felderer, M., & Schieferdecker, I. (2014). A taxonomy of risk-based testing. International Journal
on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, 16(5), 559-568. doi:10.1007/s10009-014-0332-3
Garcia, C., Dávila, A., & Pessoa, M. (2014). Test Process Models: Systematic Literature Review.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 477, 84-93. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-
13036-1_8
Henderson-Sellers, B., Gonzalez-Perez, C., McBride, T., & Low, G. (2014). An ontology for ISO
software engineering standards: 1) Creating the infrastructure. Computer Standards &
Interfaces, 36(3), 563-576. doi:10.1016/j.csi.2013.11.001
Laporte, C., & O'Connor, R. (2015). Matching Context Aware Software Testing testing Design
Techniques to ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119. In Software process improvement in graduate software
engineering programs (p. 34). Heidelburg: Springer CHAM.
Matalonga, S., Rodrigues, F., & Travassos, G. H. (2015). Matching Context Aware Software Testing
Design Techniques to ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119. Communications in Computer and Information
Science, 33-44. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19860-6_4
Reid, S. (2014). ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 Software Testing Standard. Retrieved from
http://www.softwaretestingstandard.org/29119petitionresponse.php
Ruy, F. B., Falbo, R. A., Barcellos, M. P., Guizzardi, G., & Quirino, G. K. (2015). An ISO-based
software process ontology pattern language and its application for harmonizing standards.
ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review, 15(2), 27-40. doi:10.1145/2815169.2815172