MINUTES OF THE

SIGIST STANDARDS WORKING PARTY MEETING

HELD ON 22^nd February 2002

1. Present:              Gareth Philips, Graham Thomas, Isabel Evans, John Kent, Philip Skinner.

2. Apologies:        Angela Edwards, Ann Stuart, Geoff Bailey, Ray O’Connor, Stuart Reid.

3. Agree Agenda:

 02/2.1                      The agenda was agreed.

4. Minutes from the Previous Meeting:

02/2.2                      The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed.

5. Actions from the Previous Meetings:

00/6.5                      Guidelines Section

(01/3.5)                   Stuart has agreed to amend the guidelines section of the draft Standard to ensure that it includes a section on how testers cope with poor or non-existent requirements.
Carried Forward

SR

01/5.4                      Recovery/DR Testing –Examples

(01/5.7, 01/5.8)       The team will simplify the examples, include automated recovery, and rewrite the Normative and Guidelines sections.
Carried Forward.

JA

02/1.3                      SWP Administration

                                John agreed to separate the website links to other testing sites into non-profit making organisations and commercial organisations.  He also agreed to add a disclaimer stating that the working party were not implicitly recommending particular organisations by including links to their websites on our website.
Carried Forward..

JK

01/1.10                    Teams

                                A number of people have joined/left the teams since the last meeting.  The teams as of 5^th March 2002 are:

01/7.3                      Interoperability Testing - Draft Standard
The team is to generate a draft normative and guidelines section based upon the minuted diagrams.
Closed.

RH-Y

01/10.4                   Circulate Glossary of Terms for Review

                                The Performance Testing Team has produced a glossary of terms relating to their technique. The meeting proposed that all teams produce a glossary of terms as part of the standard. This will be collated by e-mail, posted on the web site for review, with an additional meeting arranged to review the contents.
[22/02/02 Graham Thomas has contacted all Team Leaders and they have given a schedule for the production of a glossary of terms for their technique plus their availability for a glossary of terms review meeting. The consensus for a meeting was not before June 2002.].
Carried Forward.

All Team Leaders

01/11.6                    Circulate Umbrella Standards Document
It was stated that references to other techniques will be included as a global section of the standard. Stuart will circulate the umbrella standards document to the group.
This action has been revised to post the Umbrella Standards Document on the website (www.tesitngstandards.co.uk), in the procedures section.
Carried Forward

JK

01/12.3                   Portability Testing - Update the Portability Testing Technique
The team agreed to update the technique;

·         to detail how the test cases are derived

·         to document how portability issue lists are generated

·         to change 'platforms' to 'environments'

·         to define 'environments'

·         to include portability of interpreted languages as well as compiled

·         to remove example 2

·         to define the term 'system behaviours'

·         to expand example 1

Carried Forward.

                              JK/JW/FM/AS

01/12.4                   Portability Testing - Produce diagrams and document the definitions
John Kent agreed to produce a document with completed definitions and diagrams for Portability, Interoperability Configuration and Compatibility as discussed in the meeting.
Carried Forward.

                JK

01/12.5                   Interoperability Testing - Update the Interoperability Testing Technique
The team agreed to

·         to check that the OED definition of communication did not require it to be two way

·         to document how to detail attributes of the interoperability interface

·         to document how to work out appropriate techniques for test case generation

Carried Forward.

PS/HF

02/1.4                      Performance Testing

                                A number of amendments were discussed and Julian agreed to organise the necessary changes.

                                Carried Forward.

JH

02/1.5                      Procedure Testing

·         Reference the IEEE standard on Software Reviews (IEEE 1028-1997).

·         Include Model Office as a technique.

                                Carried Forward.

BH

02/1.6                      Test Patterns

                                Julian agreed to write a proposal for a BCS SIGIST sub group to investigate test patterns and forward this to Stuart for presentation at the next BCS SIGIST committee meeting.

                                Carried Forward.

JH

5. Techniques Review

5.1 Compatability Testing

                         Phil Skinner gave a brief recap on the work of the team so far including a definition of Compatibility Testing.

                         "Compatibility testing shall use a model of the compatibility requirements of the Software/System. Compatibility testing shall asses two or more systems or components ability to meet their operational requirements while residing on the same environment" 

The following actions were recorded for the Compatibility Testing Team:

02/2.3              Compatibility Testing - Meeting Actions
- Investigate the use of State Transition, Boundary Conditions and configuration audits.
- Investigate the set of compatibility tasks; shared components, events & triggers, operating system time slicing, cause & effect and sequencing of activities e.g. installation.
- Include cross references to the interoperability and memory management techniques.
New Action.

PS

5.2 Conversion Testing

                         Gareth Philips led the meeting in a session to determine the scope of Conversion Testing.
The discussion was based around a series of questions:
- Is Conversion Testing about the movement of data or the conversion from one form to another?
- How do we validate the requirements? Should this validation also be carried out for every technique?

                                The discussion was wide ranging, covering validation, migration and conversion, and very useful in helping the team to coalesce their thoughts. The following action was recorded:

02/2.4                      Conversion Testing – Definition of Scope
Gareth agreed to put together a definition of the scope of Conversion Testing and circulate for review.
New Action.

G

6. Standards Production Process

                         The meeting discussed the standards production process as prompted by the note from Geoff Bailey. There were several threads to the discussion, including the desire not to lose all of the good work that has gone into the production of each technique.
Additionally the effectiveness of the two meeting approach was debated.

                         Two actions resulted from the discussion:

02/02.05                  Team Leaders – Reaffirm commitment to team
The team leaders present suggested that all team leaders should write out to their team members to re-affirm the commitment required from the team.
New Action.

Team Leaders

02/02.6                    Management Meeting
Graham suggested that the Standards Working Party should hold a management meeting to determine the next steps and plan out work remaining to complete the non-functional testing techniques.
New Action.

GT

7. Any Other Business:

02/02.7           New Joiners Guide
Isabel Evans suggested the production of a guide for new joiners which could be posted on the Web Site. As Secretary Graham has direct contact with all new members so will look at this.
New Action.

GT

8. Next Meeting:

02/02.8           The updated list of meetings is shown below and is also available on the SWP website. The next meeting involves teams 1 and 2, who will be considering Portability Testing and Disaster Recovery Testing.

                        All scheduled Team meetings will take place at PA (Consulting), 123 Buckingham Palace Road, London, between 14:00 and 17:00.