Testing Stop Process - III

The SATC has currently examined and modeled error data from a limited number of projects. Generally, only the date on which an error was entered into the error tracking system was available, not the date of discovery of the error. No useful data was available on human or computer resources expended for testing. What is needed for the most accurate model is the total time expended for testing, even if the times are approximate. Using the sum of reported times to find/fix individual errors did not produce any reasonable correlation with the resource function required. Some indirect attempts to estimate resource usage, however, led to some very good fits. On one project errors were reported along with the name of the person that found the error. Resource usage for testing was estimated as follows: A person was estimated to be working on the testing effort over a period beginning with the first error that they reported and ending with the last error that they reported. The percentage of time that each person worked during that period was assumed to be an unknown constant that did not differ from person to person. Using this technique led to a resource curve that closely resembled the Rayleigh curve (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Test Resource Levels for Project A