Software Test Management and Metrics

Software Testing - Metrics - What is the dichotomy and why is it a challenge?

Software testing and development today have a myriad of metrics associated with them. Every aspect of testing has a metric related to it and pundits and practitioners choose to write pages and pages of theory, background and success stories around these metrics. However, one thing everyone agrees that the metrics are there only to the extent you could use them.

No matter how scientific you have utilized the methods to capture the metrics, they provide a guideline when you deploy these numbers to come up with your predictions. The predictions never match in reality to the actual number post facto. Why? This is a nagging question to all of us. By no means, this blog will try to answer this question and resolve it. However, it is an attempt to look at some of the contributing factors, in fact just one factor in details and show more light on the everlasting search for a perfect answer.

What is technology made up of? Of all the ingredients in the mix, the primary ingredient to Software development or testing is people. With the advent of user-friendly languages and many of the collaborative tools and web services, it is still human beings who provide the final glue to this jungle of options. It is the people who build the final digital fabric that is being used in various formats be it mobile phones, web portals and other man-machine interfaces.

What do we do? We have a digital final format; we have a real world problem that most often than not does not have a binary solution; that is there are various grey matters that exist today in business problems; these problems have been traditionally, albeit not efficiently or effectively been managed by human beings. What did we do?

We applied our intelligence and available material to come up with answers to problems that we have . Take for example, a simple credit card statement. When you look at a statement and recognize that you have been charged with some late fees and financial charges, you tend to call the credit company and negotiate a waiver. Most often you get granted with your wish. What does the person use when making this resolution? ; Some hard facts and soft intuition that you are a good customer and therefore must be rewarded or must be less burdened.

Likewise, we programmers/development gurus, have some hard requirements, use cases, et al and a development platform to convert the real life problems into digital solutions. We use along the way our intuitive abilities to build test assets and carry out the required testing.

Therefore, one of the reasons for the deviation between metrics and real-life experiences is that there is a non-linear element that is part of the creation of any digital work, which is a software system.

Source: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/software_test/2009/07/software_testing_m...