Software is a rapidly evolving technology that has emerged as a major component of most DoD systems. Within the DoD acquisition domain, the following are essential considerations for success in testing software:
- The Test & Evaluation (T&E) Strategy should address evaluation of highest risk technologies in system design and areas of complexity in the system software architecture. The strategy should identify and describe:
- Required schedule, materiel and expertise,
- Software evaluation metrics for Resource Management, Technical Requirements and Product Quality, including Reliability,
- Types and methods of software testing to support an evaluation in unit, integration and system test phases across the life cycle,
- Data and configuration management methods and tools, o Models and simulations supporting software T&E including accreditation status,
- A defined T&E process consistent with and complement the software and system development, maintenance and system engineering processes, committed to continuous process improvement and aligned to support project phases and reviews, including an organizational and information flow hierarchy.
- Software test planning and test design initiated in the early stages of functional baseline definition and iteratively refined with T&E execution throughout allocated baseline development, product baseline component construction and integration, system qualification and in-service maintenance.
- Software T&E embedded with and complementary to software code production as essential activities in actual software component construction, not planned and executed as follow-on actions after software unit completion.
- Formal planning when considering reuse of Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) or Government-off-the-shelf software, databases, test procedures and associated test data that includes a defined process for component assessment and selection, and test and evaluation of component integration and functionality with newly constructed system elements.
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Updated: 7/18/2017