Effectiveness of software testing techniques in enterprise: a case study

Testing is context dependent
: testing is basically context dependent. Different kinds of software 
are tested differently because of various reasons, such as different testing goals, changed BRS or SRS, 
available resources for testing, including the testing skills of employees and the tools provided by 
enterprise etc. 
7) 
Absence - of - errors fallacy
: if the system built is unusable and does not fulfill the user’s needs 
and expectations then finding and fixing defects does not help. In a first place, the more efforts should 
be taken to solve the issues related with broken system built and testing should be postpone a while. 

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After discussion of Software Testing Fundamentals the main conclusions should be made. 
Firstly, brief history of testing evolution showed that there are different approaches of testing in a 
timeline, such as The Debugging-Oriented, Demonstration-Oriented, Destruction-Oriented, 
Evaluation-Oriented, Prevention-Oriented, Context-Driven, Session-based, Agile Manifesto. Only 
after Debugging-Oriented period the differentiation between terms "debugging" and "testing" was 
presented. Secondly, the vast of concepts has been defined as multidimensional and the most used 
facets of testing, such as QA activities, quality factors, incident handling, standards, test levels, test 
types, test tools, people skills, resources, time etc., have been distinguished. The more formalized term 
by ISO standard decided to use for a wider look on testing and focus on compliance of requirements or 
"differences between existing and required conditions" which is called a bug or defect. Thirdly, the 
objectives of testing have been discovered: to find mistakes while developing the software, to gain 
confidence in and provide information about the level of quality, to prevent from defects, to ensure 
compliance of business and user requirements, to ensure that software meets the BRS and SRS. 
Fourthly, the classification of quality factors with the requirements and their corresponding tests has 
been illustrated in the extended table. Fifthly, the main principles of testing are identified in order to 
get full coverage of tests and perform efficient testing. They are as follows: 1) Testing shows presence 
of defects, 2) Exhaustive testing is impossible, 3) Early testing,4) Defect clustering, 5) Pesticide 
paradox, 6) Testing is context depending, 7) Absence – of – errors fallacy. Moreover, it is stated that 
the risk and priorities should be used to distribute testing efforts instead of doing the exhaustive 
testing.
Finally, the relationship between software testing and quality assurance can be distinguished 
after generalization of Software Testing Fundamentals and Quality Assurance is made. The main 
purpose of software testing is to discover defects (including prevention) while developing the software, 
provide information about the level of quality, to ensure compliance of business and user requirements, 
and to ensure that software meets the requirements as well. Whereas, quality assurance is defined as a 
process, set of activities (instructions) on how to ensure the consistency of software according the 
requirements during testing phase. The main activities of quality assurance are verification and 
verification that are performed by different software testing techniques. In particular, the relationship 
between software testing and software quality is essential for reducing impact on software life cycle 
cost and schedule. 

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2. AN OVERVIEW OF SOFTWARE TESTING TECHNIQUES AND THEIR USE 
IN ENTERPRISES 
This chapter presents the software testing techniques, including static and dynamic testing as a 
code analysis, test design based methods to create test cases, software testing levels that are analyzed 
as a stage of software development. Test execution types, including manual and automated testing, are 
analyzed as well. Further, the practical use of software testing techniques in enterprises is examined to 
identify how enterprises adopt those software testing techniques and what benefits and limitations they 
are facing while using any of software testing techniques.
2.1.