Speeding up testing

There is an interesting article in GCN which looks at speeding up software testing in the US Department of Defence.:

One way to eliminate these barriers is to simplify the testing and certification process, and the governance that drives it, by bringing together developers, testers and users in an integrated development and testing environment. The Defense Information Systems Agency provides a good model for this with its Federated Development and Certification Environment.

Another approach is to build governance structures that increase trust, cooperation and standardization between different organisations that conduct testing and certification. Over the years, different organisations in DOD have developed their own sets of testing standards and processes, and many still don’t accept each other’s testing and certification results.

By standardising test-acceptance criteria, DOD can realise one of the biggest potential payoffs of SOA and related strategies: re-use.

Interesting that it has taken the emergence of Service Oriented Architectures to drive large government organisations away from their antiquated approach to testing and into the modern world. Hurrah for SOA.