What Is The Software Testing Metrics?
The field of software testing has become important in the
last two decades. One of the components of software testing is
software testing metrics. What is software testing matrix?
Metrics are the means by which the software quality can be
measured; they give you confidence in the product. These may be
considered as product management indicators, which can be
either quantitative or qualitative. The metrics provided by
testing helps the management in the following.
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visibility into the maturity and readiness for
release or production |
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visibility into the quality of the software product
under development |
The above characteristics enable effective management of the
software development process, by allowing clear measurement of
the quality and completeness of the product. The demand for
software testing has increased manifold because of the
explosion in the growth of technological development, and this
has created large vacancies in the industry. In case you are
keen to join this field this is the right time to do it.
The main objective of software testing before its launch
into the market is to ensure supply of error free and bug free
software to the customer. Further, the credibility of the
software will remain high due to testing. The software testing
metrics which is a part of software testing is responsible for
checking and ensuring that the software is credible and its
performance quality is high. In addition to this, the software
testing makes sure that the product is acceptable to the target
audience.
One of the components of a software testing process is the
software testing metrics. This is meant to check the
credibility and quality of the software. The development of
software for various applications is constantly done by
software houses. Different vendors develop software for the
same application which necessarily means acute competition for
the same user. In a competitive environment like this, it
becomes a question of survival of the fittest. Your product
must be the best in quality to attract consideration. This is
done by the software testing metrics.
Software testing metrics fall under either of the categories
- project management (which includes process efficiency) and
process improvement. It is not necessary that you use both the
metrics all the time. Different metrics serve different
purposes and you should choose proper metrics for your own
situation. For example, you may have a set of metrics that you
use to evaluate the output of your test team. One such metric
may be the project management measure of the number of bugs
found. Others may be an efficiency measure of the number of
test cases written, or the number of tests executed in a given
period of time. Project management metrics are useful for the
following areas.
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Planning – Cost estimation, planning of training/
resources, scheduling, and budgeting |
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Organizing – The organization of a project is
influenced by Size and schedule metrics |
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Controlling – tracks the software development
against compliance plans |
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Improving – for improving the process , identifying
areas of weakness and monitor efforts to improve
weak areas |
A metric quantifies a characteristic of a process or product
and can be directly observable quantities or can be derived
from one or more directly observable quantities. Examples of
directly observable metrics are the number of source lines of
code, number of documentation pages, number of staff-hours,
number of tests, etc. Examples of derived metrics are source
lines of code per staff-hour, defects per thousand lines of
code, or a cost performance index. By browsing through the
internet you may be in a position to get much more information
on this subject.
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