Browsing by Author "Mohamed, Essack"
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- ItemA knowledge approach to software testing(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2004-12) Mohamed, Essack; Botha, Daniel F.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Information Science.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The effort to achieve quality is the largest component of software cost. Software testing is costly - ranging from 50% to 80% of the cost of producing a first working version. It is resource intensive and an intensely time consuming activity in the overall Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and hence could arguably be the most important phase of the process. Software testing is pervasive. It starts at the initiation of a product with nonexecution type testing and continues to the retirement of the product life cycle beyond the post-implementation phase. Software testing is the currency of quality delivery. To understand testing and to improve testing practice, it is essential to see the software testing process in its broadest terms – as the means by which people, methodology, tools, measurement and leadership are integrated to test a software product. A knowledge approach recognises knowledge management (KM) enablers such as leadership, culture, technology and measurements that act in a dynamic relationship with KM processes, namely, creating, identifying, collecting, adapting, organizing, applying, and sharing. Enabling a knowledge approach is a worthy goal to encourage sharing, blending of experiences, discipline and expertise to achieve improvements in quality and adding value to the software testing process. This research was developed to establish whether specific knowledge such as domain subject matter or business expertise, application or technical skills, software testing competency, and whether the interaction of the testing team influences the degree of quality in the delivery of the application under test, or if one is the dominant critical knowledge area within software testing. This research also set out to establish whether there are personal or situational factors that will predispose the test engineer to knowledge sharing, again, with the view of using these factors to increase the quality and success of the ‘testing phase’ of the SDLC. KM, although relatively youthful, is entering its fourth generation with evidence of two paradigms emerging - that of mainstream thinking and that of the complex adaptive system theory. This research uses pertinent and relevant extracts from both paradigms appropriate to gain quality/success in software testing.