Introduction

This appendix contains a list of criteria to be used in performing a testing process health check and a suggested approach to conducting the task.

The testing process health check could be used in a number of ways:

• To baseline the current state of testing within an organization prior to introducing a formal testing process

• To monitor the progress of the adoption of a formal testing process, and to identify areas that were satisfactory and areas capable of improvement

• As part of a process improvement program (see Chapter 13 – Improving the Testing Process).

The criteria used in the testing process health check are grouped under the following high-level headings:

• Testing and the software development process

• Testing process

• Roles and responsibilities

• Testing phases.

These groups and their individual criteria are described in full in the following sections respectively. Section Q7 contains an optional scheme for scoring the various criteria if a more quantitative approach is required.

A checklist is provided at the end of this appendix that can be copied and used as an aide-memoir during the testing process health check. This checklist is also available to download using the following link: http://www.cambridge.org/9780521148016/.

Terminology

The term “subject” is used to denote the person, project, department, or organization that is the target of the testing process health check. The term subject could refer to a third-party organization whose testing process needs to be assessed, or internally within the host organization.