Requirements based testing at HP OpenView

Abstract

Releasing a new version of a software product seems often to be a trade-off between time-to-market and quality. Customers are waiting for the announced product but also expect high quality. Sales organizations are eager to sell new products. However, if quality is not good enough the customer is not satisfied and will intensively use the vendor's support organization. This increases post-release costs and reduces net-earnings. A requirements-based test process can deliver key information for a business-driven release decision and helps to reduce rework. We describe how we have established a solid requirements management process in our organization during the last 4 years. It presents adoption experiences with a standard requirements management tool and talk about our process improvements towards requirements based testing.