Developing a system testing policy for mobile autonomous cargo handling machines

This thesis aims to study if a system testing policy created with ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 standard is reusable in a research & design department regarding black-box testing of cyber-physical systems. Reusability means that it should still be applicable even if more than one kind of test environment is needed in a project. Previous research did not reveal any suitable solutions to be applied easily in this case, until the standard 29119 came up in the research process and was chosen as the base of the policy, since it is general enough to be applied for any type of software testing organization. First, the standard’s relevant parts are presented. Then other researches’ results are presented, which had studied the usability of this standard. They stated, that it indeed is a quite large base to be applied, and is too heavy to use as it is for smaller organizations. Therefore, the research recommended some adjustments, such as combining some of the documentation together, and tailoring it for the needs of the organization at hand. After the research, a tailored system testing policy was constructed and divided in clear activities to perform before, during, and after the testing. Finally, the policy created was analyzed from the point of view of the possible test environments to be used in a project. As a result, the policy turned out to be applicable enough to be used with multiple test environments, with only varying amount of planning and resources needed depending on the number and type of the test environments. The only limitation is that it was not possible to test the policy with an actual project, due to the nature of R&D projects

A Pre-conceptual-schema-based method for eliciting requirements in the context of ISO/IEC 29110

Standards such as the ISO/IEC 29110 have been adopted and practiced by Very Small Entities (VSE) for improving quality of the software process. The basic profile established in the management and engineering guide of such standard includes a set of best practices for enhancing the process in terms of time, efficiency, budget, and documentation. On the other hand, pre-conceptual schemas are knowledge representations created for modeling a domain in a graphical, easy, and intuitive environment. The amount of VSEs adopting the basic profile has increased, since most of the projects developed by VSEs are suitable for this process model. What-to-do is described in detailed standard processes, leaving the how-to-do-it choice at discretion of the organization willing to implement such a standard. Consequently, the processes detailed in the ISO/IEC 29110 lack prescription of a particular method and VSEs face a compliance problem when implementing and developing the standard activities. Such a fact could lead to possible misunderstanding of the standard by VSEs, failing to achieve the expected quality and moving away from the project objectives, especially in first-time implementations. In this M.Sc. Thesis, we propose a method based on the ISO/IEC 29110 for eliciting requirements in very small entities by using executable pre-conceptual schemas. Besides, we validate the proposed method by conducting a case study in a research project financed by a governmental entity. By developing such a method, we intend to consolidate an alternative to VSEs when implementing the basic profile of the ISO/IEC 29110 in early stages.Resumen: Estándares tales como la norma ISO/IEC 29110 se implementan y practican en pequeñas organizaciones (Very Small Entities, abreviado VSE) para mejorar la calidad del proceso de software. El perfil básico establecido en la guía de administración e ingeniería de dicha norma incluye un conjunto de buenas prácticas para mejorar el proceso en términos de tiempo, eficiencia, presupuesto y documentación. Por otro lado, los esquemas preconceptuales son representaciones de conocimiento creadas para modelar un dominio en un entorno gráfico, fácil e intuitivo. La cantidad de VSEs que adoptan el perfil básico viene aumentando, ya que la mayoría de los proyectos que desarrollan las VSEs son adecuados para este modelo de proceso. En los procesos detallados en los estándares se describe "qué hacer", dejando el "cómo hacer" a discreción de la organización dispuesta a implementar dicho estándar. En consecuencia, los procesos detallados en la norma ISO/IEC 29110 carecen de la prescripción de un método en particular; por lo tanto, las VSEs enfrentan problemas al implementar y desarrollar las actividades del estándar. Este hecho puede llevar a una posible interpretación errónea de la norma en las VSEs, al no lograr la calidad esperada e impedirles lograr los objetivos del proyecto, especialmente en primeras implementaciones. En esta Tesis de Maestría se propone un método basado en la norma ISO/IEC 29110 para educir requisitos en pequeñas organizaciones mediante el uso de esquemas preconceptuales ejecutables. Además, se valida el método propuesto realizando un caso de estudio en un proyecto de investigación que financia una entidad gubernamental. Al desarrollar un método de esta índole, se pretende consolidar una alternativa para VSEs al implementar el perfil básico de la norma ISO/IEC 29110 en etapas iniciales.Maestrí

DEVELOPMENT OF A QUALITY MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT TOOL TO EVALUATE SOFTWARE USING SOFTWARE QUALITY MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES

Organizations are constantly in search of competitive advantages in today’s complex global marketplace through improvement of quality, better affordability, and quicker delivery of products and services. This is significantly true for software as a product and service. With other things being equal, the quality of software will impact consumers, organizations, and nations. The quality and efficiency of the process utilized to create and deploy software can result in cost and schedule overruns, cancelled projects, loss of revenue, loss of market share, and loss of consumer confidence. Hence, it behooves us to constantly explore quality management strategies to deliver high quality software quickly at an affordable price. This research identifies software quality management best practices derived from scholarly literature using bibliometric techniques in conjunction with literature review, synthesizes these best practices into an assessment tool for industrial practitioners, refines the assessment tool based on academic expert review, further refines the assessment tool based on a pilot test with industry experts, and undertakes industry expert validation. Key elements of this software quality assessment tool include issues dealing with people, organizational environment, process, and technology best practices. Additionally, weights were assigned to issues of people, organizational environment, process, and technology best practices based on their relative importance, to calculate an overall weighted score for organizations to evaluate where they stand with respect to their peers in pursuing the business of producing quality software. This research study indicates that people best practices carry 40% of overall weight, organizational best v practices carry 30% of overall weight, process best practices carry 15% of overall weight, and technology best practices carry 15% of overall weight. The assessment tool that is developed will be valuable to organizations that seek to take advantage of rapid innovations in pursuing higher software quality. These organizations can use the assessment tool for implementing best practices based on the latest cutting edge management strategies that can lead to improved software quality and other competitive advantages in the global marketplace. This research contributed to the current academic literature in software quality by presenting a quality assessment tool based on software quality management best practices, contributed to the body of knowledge on software quality management, and expanded the knowledgebase on quality management practices. This research also contributed to current professional practice by incorporating software quality management best practices into a quality management assessment tool to evaluate software

Propuesta de una metodología de aseguramiento y control de calidad para los proyectos de software de Inclutec

Trabajo Final de Graduación (Licenciatura en Administración de Tecnología de Información) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Área Académica de Administración de Tecnologías de Información, 2020El presente proyecto es una investigación enfocada en el tema de aseguramiento de la calidad del software. La investigación se realiza en una pequeña organización dedicada al desarrollo de software que presenta una problemática en medir la calidad del software al no contar con resultados que lo respalden, esto corresponde a que durante el ciclo de vida del desarrollo los procesos de aseguramiento de calidad son empíricos y no estandarizados. A partir de la problemática, se presenta una propuesta de metodología se aseguramiento de la calidad de software, que permita a la organización cumplir con los objetivos de calidad de cada proyecto que este en desarrollo y los proyectos futuros. Esto, por medio de un conjunto de procesos, actividades y artefactos enfocado en la gestión de requerimientos y verificación y validación de software. Para abordar la problemática existente, se parte de un análisis de la situación actual para consolidar en una serie de procesos las prácticas actuales de la organización. Luego, se hace una revisión de las normas y buenas prácticas de la industria del software, referente a aseguramiento de la calidad. Posteriormente, con la situación actual y las recomendaciones de las prácticas de la industria se hace un análisis de la brecha, que permite identificar las necesidades de la organización. Por último, ese análisis da paso para la formulación de la propuesta para la organización. De todo el proceso de desarrollo de la investigación se obtiene que el aseguramiento de la calidad es un proceso que se debe abordar desde el inicio del proyecto y no en solo en las etapas de pruebas del software. Por lo tanto, la propuesta se hace abarcando la gestión de requerimientos y la gestión de verificación y validación de software. Esto involucra, en cuanto a requerimientos, el levantamiento, análisis, especificación, validación y control de cambios, y en cuanto a verificación y validación, la planeación, ejecución, documentación y reporte de pruebas. Con esta investigación se determina que las prácticas de calidad de la industria son benignas para cualquier organización, para ello se debe realizar un análisis para identificar las aplicaciones de esas prácticas, con el fin de aportar valor al proceso de desarrollo de software, por medio de procesos ágiles y objetivos.This project is a research focused on software quality assurance. The research is carried out in a small organization dedicated to software development that presents a problem in measuring software quality as it does not have results that support it, this corresponds to empirical and non-standardized processes of quality assurance during the software life cycle Based on the problem, a proposal for a software quality assurance method is presented, which allows the organization to meet the quality goals of each current project and futures. Through a set of processes, activities and artifacts focused on requirements management and software verification and validation. At the beginning, it starts from an analysis of the current situation to consolidate the current practices of the organization in a series of processes. Then, a review of the standards and best practices of the software industry is done, referring to quality assurance. Subsequently, with the current situation and the recommendations of industry practices, an analysis of the gap is made, which allows finding the needs of the organization. Finally, this analysis gives way to the formulation of the proposal for the organization. From all the research development process it is obtained that the quality assurance is a process that must be addressed from the beginning of the project and not only in the software testing stages. Therefore, the proposal is made encompassing requirements management and software verification and validation management. This involves, in terms of requirements, the elicitation, analysis, specification, validation and control of changes, and in terms of verification and validation, planning, execution, documentation and test reporting. With this research it is determined that the quality practices of the industry are benign for any organization, for this an analysis must be carried out to identify the applications of those practices, in order to add value to the software development process, through agile and objective processes

Tailoring ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3 standard for small and medium-sized enterprises

IT companies tend to overlook software development processes, and, consequently, end up following poorly defined or inconsistent software development and testing process, in part due to their associated high costs, complexity and extensiveness of some of these processes and associated standards. In addition, according to our experience, these organizations show severe difficulties when attempting to follow and apply existing standards related to regulation and software testing processes, as is the case of the ISO 29119-3 standard. Therefore, this paper discusses the applicability of this ISO 29119-3 standard in Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs), by presenting an iterative and interactive process for tailoring. The goal is to satisfy the testing process needs of these SMEs, combining the software development process with key points of the ISO 29119-3 standard, without infringing its integrity. The tailoring process is then applied and discussed in a live setting. Such results showed improvements in an SME testing process, using the tailored ISO 29119-3 as a guideline, minimizing considerable amounts of resources.This work was developed within the project IMP_4.0: Integrated Management Platform 4.0 (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-009147), under Portuguese National Grants Program for R&D projects (P2020 -SI IDT), COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013