Improving the Technical Aspects of Software Testing in Enterprises

TL;DR

This paper identifies best practices and provides a framework for improving the technical aspects of software testing in enterprises, aiming to enhance quality and manageability.

Contribution

It introduces a graphical categorization framework and five technical testing recommendations tailored for enterprise software development.

Findings

Derived best practices from regional companies' testing processes.

Developed a graphical categorization framework for applicability assessment.

Provided implementation advice for five technical testing recommendations.

Abstract

Many software developments projects fail due to quality problems. Software testing enables the creation of high quality software products. Since it is a cumbersome and expensive task, and often hard to manage, both its technical background and its organizational implementation have to be well founded. We worked with regional companies that develop software in order to learn about their distinct weaknesses and strengths with regard to testing. Analyzing and comparing the strengths, we derived best practices. In this paper we explain the project's background and sketch the design science research methodology used. We then introduce a graphical categorization framework that helps companies in judging the applicability of recommendations. Eventually, we present details on five recommendations for tech-nical aspects of testing. For each recommendation we give im-plementation advice based on the categorization framework.