Requirements Based Testing

April 18, 2019

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What is Requirements Based Testing?

The process of requirements based testing deals with validating whether the requirements are complete, consistent , unambiguous, complete and logically connected. With such requirements, we can proceed to develop test cases to ensure that the test cases fullfill all the requirements. Testing in this technique revolves around requirements. The strategy of Requirement based testing is to integrate testing throughout the life cycle of the software development process, to assure quality of the Requirement Specification. The aim is defect prevention than defect detection.

Taking Requirement Based testing into account, testing is divided into the following types of activity :

• Define Test Completion Criteria :

  Testing should be defined in quantifiable terms. The goal is considered to be achieved only when test coverage is 100%.

• Design Test Cases :

  Test cases must be in accordance with requirements specification.

• Build Test Cases :

  Join the logical parts together to form/build test cases .

• Execute Test Cases :

  Execute the test cases to evaluate the results.

• Verify Test Results :

  Check whether actual results deviate from the expected ones.

• Verify Test Coverage :

  Check for functional test coverage.

• Manage Test Library :

  Test manager is responsible for monitoring the test case executions, that is, the tests passed or failed, or to ascertain whether all tests have been successfully performed.

Why Requirements are Critical :

Various studies have shown that software projects fail due to the following reasons:

• Incomplete requirements and specifications
• Frequent changes in requirements and specifications
• When there is lack of user input to requirements

So the requirements based testing process addresses each of the above issues as follows :

• The Requirements based testing process starts at the very early phase of the software development, as correcting issues/errors is easier at this phase.
• It begins at the requirements phase as the chances of occurrence of bugs have its roots here.
• It aims at quality improvement of requirements. Insufficient requirements leads to failed projects.