Architecture Testing
I often wonder how many IT professionals say “we could have caught these bugs up front had we been involved in the planning and design phase at project proposal”. How true can it be and what does it take to convince the business leaders, architects and other stakeholders that testing should occur at design time? A time where value propositions are discussed to increase the company’s ROI based on customer requirements and business trends.
Another way of saying this is how much money can be added to the ROI if testing begins at design time? I have seen numbers that state for every 100,000 lines of code released to production a company can spend up to $300,000 dollars in maintenance and support cost over the lifecycle of the product. Some would say this is too high while others would argue it’s too low. What are your thoughts?
· Can the cost be attributed to not having a comprehensive quality control system in place at design time?
· Can you agree that implementing an architecture testing process at design time can?
§ Reduce rework and maintenance cost
§ Provide better fault detection and test coverage at development and implementation time? (increased productivity)
§ Provide a more proven deployment and operations plan (faster time to market)
§ Provide better traceability through the product life cycle (predictability)
If you answered yes to all or some of these questions, then you either have a quality control process in place to cover architecture testing or you are in need of implementing one.
The patterns and practices test team is in the process of developing guidance that addresses architecture testing. Our years of experience have proven the earlier you identify issues in the product life cycle, the more you will save in the rears. It’s not just saving money; architecture testing is saving and expanding the business with collaborative partnerships and customer satisfaction.
One high severity bug or a missed opportunity can cost you dearly in your enterprise application space. Your business domain should be validated against each solution (application) as well as the application itself. So if you were to assemble an architecture test team, what skill sets would require? Better yet:
· How would you define architecture testing?
· Are you faced with this challenge in your business today?
· Do you test at Design Time?
§ If not, why not?
§ If so what’s the approach and benefits?
You can also visit
· http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=4713168a-9073-40e2-854a-a4b9ca217de9 and .net application block testing at:
· http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/mtf.asp
Ed
