Comparison of Change Management Systems

Quality in Project
Test Process Maturity and
Related Measurement
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About the author:
Nagaraj is Director-
Customer Excellence,
in STAG Software
Private Ltd. He has
over twenty-five years
of experience in the
software discipline
and has worked in
all the phases of
software development life cycle out
of which sixteen years in the field of
Software Test Engineering.
He is passionate about driving process
improvement for achieving better
business results. He has delivered
lectures on Software Engineering,
Software Testing and Software
Process Improvement at many
organizations and in International
Testing Conferences. He was certified
internal auditor for ISO and part of
internal assessment team for CMM
model.
He holds an engineering degree in
Mechanical discipline from Mysore
University. He has completed diploma
in Statistical Quality Control (SQC)
from ISI. His interests are in the areas
of test design, project management,
test process improvement using TMM,
and data analysis using statistical tools.
He had submitted papers and tutorials
on different topics of his interest in
the international conferences held in
India, Singapore and Malaysia.
Contact: nagaraj@stagsoftware.com
Abstract
The organizations have moved from
“assemble testing team on need
basis” to “a focused independent
testing team” over years. It is quite
natural that the test process to run
the organization also has changed
drastically to address the entire test
life cycle process covering different
aspects of process engineering.
Organization involved in software
development normally chooses
standard models as framework to
improve their software development
life cycle process like ISO 9001, CMMI,
SPICE etc. Because of the important
role of testing in software process and
product quality, and the limitations
of existing process assessment
models, Ilene Burnstein at Illinois
Institute of Technology developed the
Testing Maturity Model. This model
helps organizations to introduce best
practices in progressive way and
assess the capability and maturity of
test process against a set of standards
goals.
The quality of measurements collected
regarding testing activities improves
over the years. This also reflects the
level of process maturity achieved.
This paper is intended to share
authors experience on journey of
improvements regarding test related
measurement collections observed in
the organization over time.
At each level of process maturity the
goals are different. The measurements
we collect to understand the status
of maturity level goals achieved is
explained in this paper using GQM
model.
Introduction
We all know, the organizations have
Author: Nagaraj M Chandrashekhara
moved from “assemble testing
team on need basis” to “a focused
independent testing team” over years.
It is quite natural that the test process
in the organization also has changed
drastically to address the entire test
life cycle process covering different
aspects of process engineering. The
quality of measurements collected
regarding testing activities improved
over the years. This also reflects the
level of process maturity achieved.
This paper is intended to share
authors experience on journey of
improvements regarding test related
measurement collections observed in
the organization over time.
The Test Maturity Model is used as
framework to explain the growth of
maturity in measurement collection
and analysis in an organization
using TMM as model for process
improvement. The paper just
introduces on TMM model and
maturity level goals in first section.
The authors experience in process
improvement and how meaningful
measurements are recommended to
be collected are explained using Goal
Question Metrics as model in this
paper in the remaining sections.
Test Maturity Model
Test maturity model (TMM) developed
by a research group headed by Ilene
Burnstein at the Illinois Institute of
Technology. The TMM used by many
software development organizations
to assess and improve their testing
process. This model that illustrates
in stages how a testing process grow
incrementally.
The internal structure of TMM maturity
level explained in the picture below.
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