Business drives research in software testing

It's not often that the news carries stories about the business world driving new research in software testing. Yet that is exactly what FedEx are doing as described in this news story.

They have commissioned the University of Memphis to research a number of topics pertaining to the matter, through the Systems Testing Excellence Program (STEP). The FedEx goals will be familiar to any business dependent on Information Technology: they want less problems with new systems and they want to make the software testing process faster.

Code is written and then turned over to unit testing; testers look for defects and send that detail back to the development team, Miller said. Determinations are made on whether an issue actually is a defect or a requirements shortcoming."We sort of believe that testing as a discipline has probably not kept up pace" with other areas of IT, Miller said.FedEx's focus is on testing large, complex, integrated software systems, on both mainframe and distributed systems."We want to make sure we're in the forefront of the testing space," Miller said.

Research areas being studied include:

• A risk-based testing process, featuring risk assessment
• A multistage system testing model, for fault tolerance and debugging-free software
• Managing software testing in projects that involve offshore vendors
• Engaging testers earlier in the life cycle
• Skills acquisition by testers
• Gauging employee personality and cultural characteristics as they pertain to software testing projects
• Development of decision models for the best use of software testing resources
• A systems testing expert system
• Improving test benefits through the software development life cycle
• A knowledge transfer mechanism for skills acquisition in software testing
• Applying a knowledge management approach to testing
• A network infrastructure test suite, to automate detection of network vulnerabilities