2 February 2017
There are several levels of ‘independence’ in software product testing. Generally, four such levels are singled out. Every of these levels has its own peciliarities that should be reviewed before the dev company decides to use the services of independent testing.
- Testing is performed by the same specialists who have developed the product.
- Checking is conducted by the other person but of the product team (for example, another developer).
- Testing is done by the specialists of another team as in the case of the independent test team.
- Checking is performed by the specialist of absolutely another organization or company (for example, outsourced testing or certification by the external body).
But independent testing is not only the unity of some particular conditions, everything is much more complicated.
What is independent testing of different levels?
- On one hand, there is not any actual independence as the developers perform testing within the dev team.
- Then a tester or a group of specialists is implemented to the developers. But they provide the dev manager with the reports.
- A test team is independent and it works separately from the development team, but all reports are handed over the project manager.
- The fourth level is characterized by the full independence. A certain test team works along with the dev team and it is reporting to the organization which equals to the development team or project team.
The team of independent testing also can include the specialists of the domain field (the system users), technological experts (database specialists), testers (are going to conduct manual testing or automated testing). They all will be the members of the independent testing team or the part of outsource test team.