ISTQB Foundation Level

Chapter- 6 Tool Support for testing

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Agenda

1. Various types of testing tools 2. Effective use of tools Potential Benefits & Risks 3. Introducing a tool into an organization

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Various types of testing tools

Test tool classification can be done based upon the test activities they support. Some tools support more than one test activities. But are widely known for supporting a single activity. Thus they will be classified using that single activity.

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Various types of testing tools

Tool Support for management of testing & tests : Test Management Tools Requirements Management Tools Incident Management Tools Configuration Management Tools

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Various types of testing tools

Tool support for static testing : Review process support tools Static Analysis tools Modeling tools

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Various types of testing tools

Tools Support for test specification : Test Design Tools Test Data preparation Tools

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Various types of testing tools

Tool support for test execution & logging : Test Execution Tools Test Harness / Unit test framework tools Test Comparators Coverage measurement Tools Security Tools

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Various types of testing tools

Tool support for performance & monitoring : Dynamic analysis tools Performance/Load/Stress Testing Tools Monitoring tools

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Various types of testing tools

Tool support specific application areas: Such type of tools are customized for a given application, specific platform or to test specific security features.

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Effective use of tools potential benefits & risks

Potential benefits of tool support for testing : Repetitive work is reduced. Typical examples of repetitive work are regression tests, same test data pattern, verification against set coding standards Higher consistency & reliability

Ease of access to information about tests & testing. Test progress, performance data are easily available.

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Effective use of tools potential benefits & risks

Potential risks of tool support for testing : Unrealistic expectations from the tool Underestimating the cost, time & efforts to be spent in the initial introduction of the tool Underestimating the time & efforts required to be spent to gain substantial & continuing benefits from the tool Over reliance on the tool.(Manual testing can never be replaced with a tool)

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11

Effective use of tools potential benefits & risks

Special considerations to be given for some types of tools : Test execution tools rely on execution using on recorded scripts. Unexpected events can hamper execution of such tools

Also test execution tools need technical expertise in the scripting language.
Performance testing also needs expert resources to design the tests & to interpret the results.

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12

Introducing a tool into an organization

The main principles to be followed are : Assessment of organization maturity, its strengths/weaknesses, identification of potential areas in which tool support can improve performance The requirements & objective of opting for the tool must be clear & concise. A proof-of-concept could be done in a small scale project to determine if the product meets its required objectives.

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13

Q&A

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14

Thank You

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