Article Review: Testing and Change Management - MITS5501 Report

This report presents a detailed review of an article on software change management, focusing on the work of Jacky. The review summarizes the article's key points, including the evolution of SCM, current research, and future challenges. The report highlights the article's strengths, such as its clear organization and demonstration of concepts, while also pointing out weaknesses like the lack of specific implementation guidance and case studies. The review also includes a critique of the article, suggesting areas for improvement, such as providing a step-by-step process for SCM implementation and examples of SCM tools. The report analyzes the article's discussion on proactive quality assurance, testing as reactive, and SCM as the best software engineering technology. The review also compares the article with other sources, such as tutorialpoint.com, and discusses the importance of traceability matrices and ISO standards. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive assessment of the article's contribution to the field of software engineering, particularly in the context of software change management.

ARTICLE REVIEW: SOFTWARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
By (Student Name)
Article Reviewed: Testing and Change Management
Article Author: Maciaszek
(Tutor’s Name)
(University’s Name)
(City)
(Date)
Student’s Name Student’s ID 1

Introduction
The article by Jacky is summarized into three major chapters. The first chapter
summarizes the state of art in SCM, the second chapter shows the current research work and
issues under way in software engineering. The last part, has highlighted the challenges SCM has
to take up and SCM future. The article is gives an overview of the book “Software configuration
management implementation roadmap” by Mario E. Moreira
Body
Synopsis of the article
According to Jacky Software Configuration Management (SCM) is the control of
complex systems. The disciple emerged after software crisis in the early 80s and 70s. This was
an attempt to address software engineering issues. According to the author SCM focused largely
in programming. According to the author SCM system provides services in the following areas;
first is managing a repository components; this includes product modelling, complex project
management, and version management. The second area is helping engineers in their usual
activities; this according to the author involves proving engineers with the right objects. The last
area indicated by the author is process control and support. The author has also highlighted all
the concepts of SM which are versioning, product model, and composition. On the last part the
author has indicated that SCM tools are rapidly growing thus the increasing in number of SCM
tools challenges. Some of the challenges indicated by the author are in functional areas example
are concurrent engineering with very high level models and scalable solutions. Configuration
control with consistency criteria and automatic selection.
Discussion and analysis of the article
The major points of the article
The article summarizes four major points. The author, Jacky provides a customizable
step-by-step process of implementing SCM. Second, the author discusses typical SCM activities
at the project control which includes change control, problem management, and source control.
Third the author has stressed on the fact that anyone can implement SCM in their company at
every level. Lastly, compared to other technologies, the author has indicated that SCM is the best
Software engineering technologies. According to the author the market is booming with over one
billion sales as at 1998.
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Discussion
From the article by Jacky Estublier it is evident that SCM spans the software
development lifecycle. From the article, one can state that SCM has two major dimensions which
are proactive quality assurance and testing as reactive. Also one can state that SCM testing is the
best software engineering technology. In addition to the article by Jacky Estublier a change
request is usually an enhancement and a defect.
Strength and weaknesses
The intended audience of this article are the software testers, software developers, and
system analyst. The author is aimed at describing testing and change management which is part
of requirements analysis and system design. In addition, the author has defined the important
terms which are testing, change management and software quality.
Just like any other article in engineering, Jacky’s article is referenced using the standard
IEEE format. Also the article arranged in a chorological order like other academic articles from
abstract, introduction, current research work, and conclusion.
The article by Jacky Estublier is an excellent one in software development. First, the
article is rich in demonstration; the author demonstrated some of his points by the use of a table.
Table is one tool used by researched to explain a concept; this enables a reader to understand
more. Second, the article covers advanced features in the software development process such as
software engineering technologies such as SCM and PDM. Also, as one can view from the
article, it is organized logically and very easy to follow. In addition, the author suits his intended
audience as he has highlighted some aspects of software testing. The author has objectively
argued his points with clear illustrations.
One of the weaknesses of the article is that the author has not clearly stated how a tester
can conduct change management. From other software engineering articles such as that by S.M
Ghost, he has stated clearly on how a tester can conduct change during software development.
SCM does not cover everything in software engineering. Usually, software change management
needs to be supported by solid decision-making processes Also there are some special techniques
used in change management that the author needs to have highlighted. These are impact analysis
techniques where one analyses the impacts of modification in a system. Other techniques which
the author need to have highlighted are reverse engineering technique which is aimed at deriving
higher-level description from a lower level presentations. Also, there is a regression technique.
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Second, the author has not highlighted any case study in his article. An example of an article
“UML and system development” is rich in five case studies which cover all aspects of software
engineering. Lastly, I expected the article to have a software change management processes and
a list of various SCM technologies.
Critique
First, the author, Jacky need to note that SCM practices only recognizes core functional
areas, this assists project team to control, audit, report, and identify all the configuration items of
a project team. Like Mario, Jacky lacks to offer to his audience “how-to” guide for SCM
implementation for technology and commercial fields. In addition, the author lacks a practical
through approach in SCM implementation. It is important to note that Jacky’s article does not
include examples and all the instruction of SCM tasks. Example the article by Mario has an easy
set follow of tasks which can be customized which can be used by any SCM professional when
implementing SCM in a more expedient and efficient manner while at the same time imparting
SCM knowledge. Jacky needs to have provided in his article a customizable step-by-step process
of implementing SCM. This usually assists in discussing typical SCM activities at project level
which include problem statement, change control and source control. Also in his article he ought
to have included procedures, templates and other materials to help in understanding SCM. The
author mentions about SCM tools but he lacks to give some examples of these tools, example of
well-known tools is the Moreira software (Moreira, 2004, p. 34) .
Second, even though the article by tutorialpoint.com does contain the three aspects as
Jacky’s article, the article has first highlighted ISO standards of testing; any software engineer
needs to know these standards so that they can continue with the process of testing. In addition,
just like tutorialpoint.com, Jacky needs to have highlighted the myths in the three aspects which
are quality, change management, and testing example one of the testing myth highlighted on the
tutorialpoint.com is that testing is too expensive and cannot be started unless the product is fully
developed. On the traceability section, Jacky needs to have given a traceability matrix juts like
tutorialpoint.com article. The major aim of the traceability aspect is to trace the conformity of
software with highlighted requirements. This means that with that the author needs to have
highlighted the traceability matrix which is used to trace requirements during the software
development process. This can assists software testers in forward tracing. Other reasons of the
advantages of traceability matrix are making sure that an application or a software is developed
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as per the mentioned requirements. Also, it assist in finding the root causes of any software
defect or a bug and in tracing the developed documents in different phases of software
development process (TutorialPoint.com, n.d, p. 21).
Conclusion
The article by Jacky uses teach by example approach to explain only one concept in
software engineering which is software change management. The article has used one table to
explain the concept of SCM. In addition, the article does not contain what software engineer
might want to know about software development process but it has emphasized on software
testing specifically on software change management. The article has mentioned how SCM fits in
software development process. In addition, the article has outlined the key deliverables of
software change management, but has not highlighted the key aspects of software testing, and
software quality.
References
Student’s Name Student’s ID 5

Maciaszek, 2005. Testing and Change Management. Requirements Analysis and System Design,
pp. 2-30.
Moreira, M. E., 2004. Software Configuration Management Implementation Roadmap. 2nd ed.
New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
S. M. Ghosh, H. R. S. V. M., 2011. Software change management – Technological dimension.
Software development , 5(2), pp. 21-35.
TutorialPoint.com, n.d. Software Testing. Software Engineering, pp. 1-23.
Student’s Name Student’s ID 6