business analysis meet test analysis

WHOSE TECHNIQUE IS IT ANYWAY?Leveraging business analysis deliverables for test

analysis

www.businesschange.co.za10 November, 2009 1

Testing Interest Group (TIG) Networking Evening in Cape Town

10 November, 2009

Presented by Joe Newbert

The brief

Plumbers fix leaks, builders make walls, architects draw lines,

drivers drive, testers do test case design

“If they can get away with it, they would prefer not using any techniques at all!” Leo van der Aalst

Matching & prioritising test case design techniques against the business analysis modelling techniques and artefacts produced

10 November, 2009 www.businesschange.co.za 2

The demonstrable way

Strategy

• Think

Tactics

• Plan

Execution

• Do

Are testing techniques the only way to realise the agreed test strategy?


Testing mindset

Where’s the balance of your thinking?


System Elements

System

Procedures

Documents

Hardware

Software

Database

People

A regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole


Strategy

Test Goals

• A test goal is a success criterion for the test assignment specified in the customer’s language.

Test Risks

• A product risk is the chance that the product fails in relation to the expected damage if it does so.

Test Approach

• Is the distribution of the test effort and test intensity over the combinations of characteristics and object parts

Aimed at finding the most important defects as early as possible and at the lowest costs.


Tactics

Test Basis

• All documents from which the requirements of a component or system can be inferred.

Design Techniques

• A set of tools that provide instruction how to move from a requirement or design artefact to test cases

Test Cases

• A set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine whether a software system is working correctly or not

If an unsuitable technique is selected or no techniques are used, all of the previous steps will have been in vain


Business Analysis Range

Strategic Analysis

• Identify business transformation

• Support strategic analysis

• Understanding of strategy development

Business Analysis

• Straddles the gap

• Investigate situations

• Recommend actions

IT systems analysis

• Analysing and specifying IT system requirements

• Data, process and function modelling

The extent of the Business Analyst’s role and responsibilities


Holistic approach

Process

•Are they well defined?

•Are there workarounds

•Are there unnecessary overheads?

People

•Do they understand their role?

•Do then have the required skills?

•How motivated are they?

Organisational context

•Is there a good support structure?

•Are roles well defined?

•Is cross-functional working effective?

Analyse all aspects of the operational business


Business Analysis Techniques

Elicitation Techniques

Analysis Techniques

DeliverablesRequirements Management

The techniques listed hereon are only a subset of the techniques used by practitioners of business analysis.


Elicitation Techniques

Document Analysis

•Document analysis is a means to elicit requirements by studying available documentation.

Focus Groups

•A focus group is a means to elicit ideas and attitudes about a specific product or service in an interactive group setting.

Interviews

•A systematic approach designed to elicit information from a person or group of people by talking to an interviewee.

Requirements Workshops

•A structured way to scope, discover, define, prioritize and reach closure on requirements for the target system.

Observation

•Observation is a means of eliciting requirements by conducting an assessment of the stakeholder’s environment.

Survey/Questionnaire

•A means of eliciting information from many people, sometimes anonymously, in a relatively short period of time.

Work with stakeholders to identify and understand their needs and concerns, and understand the environment in which they work


Analysis Techniques

Benchmarking

•Benchmark studies are performed to compare the strengths and weaknesses of an organization against its peers and competitors.

Brainstorming

•The aim of brainstorming is to produce numerous new creative ideas, and to derive from them themes for further analysis.

Decision Analysis

•To support decision-making when dealing with complex, difficult, or uncertain situations.

Root Cause Analysis

•The purpose of root cause analysis is to determine the underlying source of a problem.

Prototyping

•Prototyping details user interface requirements and integrates them with other requirements such as use cases, scenarios

Interface Analysis

•Identify interfaces between solutions components and define requirements that describe how they will interact.

Identify a business need, refine and clarify the definition of that need, and define a solution scope that can feasibly be implemented


Deliverables

Functional Decomposition

Business Rules Analysis

Data Dictionary and Glossary

Scope Modelling Process

ModellingData Modelling

Non-functional Requirements

Analysis

Sequence Diagrams

Scenarios and Use Cases

Metrics and Key Performance

Indicators

Organization Modelling

State Diagrams

Is the appropriate output result from a particular business analysis task


Requirements Management

Acceptance Criteria

•To define the requirements that must be met in order for a solution to be considered acceptable.

Estimation

•Estimating techniques forecast the cost and effort involved in pursuing a course of action.

Risk Analysis

•To identify and manage areas of uncertainty that can impact an initiative, solution, or organisation.

Lessons Learned Process

•Document successes, opportunities for improvement, failures, and recommendations for improving performance

Problem Tracking

•An organized approach to tracking, management, and resolution of defects, issues, problems, and risks.

Structured Walkthrough

•Performed to communicate, verify and validate requirements.

How business analysts manage requirements, delivery, conflicts, issues and changes


Deliverable Prioritisation

Organisation

Process

Data

Behaviour

Rules

Which are the fundamental Business Analysis techniques to deliver?

www.businesschange.co.za10 November, 2009 15

Organisation

CEO / Board

Procurement Fulfilment

Inbound

Manufacture

Outbound

Marketing & Sales

Customer Services

Finance

Debtors

Creditors

Functional decomposition of the organisational hierarchy, alluding to the core value chain


Process model

Representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed and improved in future.


Data

A data model provides the details of information to be stored


Behaviour

A state diagram describes the behaviour of systems as a series of events


Business Rules

ID Definition Type State Source

BR-1 Delivery time windows are 15 minutes, beginning on each quarter hour.

Fact Static DeliveryManager

BR-2 All meals in a single order must be paid for using the same payment method.

Constraint Static Corporate Accounting Manager

BR-3 Order price is calculated as the sum of each food item price times the quantity of that food item ordered, plus applicable sales tax, plus a delivery charge if a meal is delivered outside the free delivery zone.

Computation Dynamic Cafeteria policy; state tax code

A statement that defines or constrains some aspect of the business to assert structure or to control or influence behaviour


Test Case Design

Test Case

Test Techniques

Test Strategy

Test Basis

The assembling of appropriate data to process through the system to assess functional and quality of service requirements


TCD Prioritisation

Pairs Wise

Path Flow

Formal

Boundary Value

Analysis

Equivalence Class

Partition

Decision Logic Table

Exploratory

Experience and

intuition

Error Model

Which Test Case Design technique should I use first?


Business Analysis meets Test Analysis

Pairs Wise

Path Flow

BVA ECP DLT

Organisational Context

Business Process Model

DataModel

State Chart Diagram

Business Rule Definitions

Leveraging business analysis techniques for test analysis and quality assurance?


Observations & conversation

Do TA’s and BA’s collaborate? Would model delivery be more effective together?

Do TAs get out enough? Are only PMs, BAs and DEVs allowed to talk to users?

Is the TA emerging? The BA has emerged from IT Software stigma,

Where is Testing today, where is it moving to?


Done

[email protected]

joe.newbert

http://za.linkedin.com/in/newbert

www.twitter.com/newbert

www.slideshare.net/newbert

Here’s how we can connect


mailto:[email protected]

http://za.linkedin.com/in/newbert

http://www.twitter.com/newbert

http://www.slideshare.net/newbert

business analysis meet test analysis

Business

test case

business analysis

functional

test basis

elicitation

pairs wise

organisational

path flow