Future of Software Testing

Trends in the industry suggest that software testing in the future will look very different than it does today. The major trends include greater adoption of SOA, web services, SaaS, wireless and mobile technologies. Each of these trends is further complicated by a more agile approach to software development and an increasing emphasis on the 4Rs; repeatability, reliability, re-use and robustness.

This white paper investigates how testing will need to change to accommodate these trends and become a business led activity.

About Software testing

Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test.^[1] Software testing also provides an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include, but are not limited to, the process of executing a program or application with the intent of finding software bugs.

Software testing can also be stated as the process of validating and verifying that a software program/application/product:

1. meets the business and technical requirements that guided its design and development;
2. works as expected; and
3. can be implemented with the same characteristics.

Software testing, depending on the testing method employed, can be implemented at any time in the development process. However, most of the test effort occurs after the requirements have been defined and the coding process has been completed. As such, the methodology of the test is governed by the software development methodology adopted.

Different software development models will focus the test effort at different points in the development process. Newer development models, such as Agile, often employ test driven development and place an increased portion of the testing in the hands of the developer, before it reaches a formal team of testers. In a more traditional model, most of the test execution occurs after the requirements have been defined and the coding process has been completed.

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