MINUTES OF THE

BCS SIGiST STANDARDS WORKING PARTY MEETING

HELD ON 11^th MARCH 2003

1. Attendance.

Present	Angela Edwards, Graham Thomas, Grenville Johns, Julian Harty, Lawrance Titterton, Margaret Saner, Neil Hudson, Richard Neeve, Stuart Reid
Apologies	Brian Hambling, David Ramsay, Isabel Evans, Peter Morgan, Steve Allott, Trevor Price.

2. Agree Agenda

03/3.1 The agenda was agreed.

3. Technique reviews

The following administrative actions were recorded during the domain technique review section of the meeting:

03/3.2 SWP Administrative Actions

- Graham to e-mail the definition of Procedure Testing to Stuart Reid so that it can be posted on the website.	GT/SR
- Stuart to Insert a link in the website glossary to terms defined in the non-functional definitions section.	SR
- Graham agreed to write a general note to all domain/technique authors requesting 1. That they re-format their examples to use the new template as defined in the minutes of the 12/02/03 meeting. 2. If inserting diagrams in their examples can they please use the drawing tools available in the word processing package being used, then the diagram will be automatically converted when posted to the website.	GT
- Angela Edwards agreed to produce a proposal for how we expect people to use the web-based domain technique examples by 28/03/03	AE
- Graham to include an agenda item for two meetings time (21/05/03) to discuss the proposal from Angela about how people will actually use the web-based domain/technique examples.	GT
- Graham agreed to e-mail the working party to notify them when the minutes of the last meeting are posted to the website.	GT
New Action.

3.1. MIS/Procedure technique example review

Margaret Saner, the example author, walked the meeting through the example with relevance to the comments received during the review period. Additional comments were received during the discussion in the meeting and the following actions were agreed:

03/3.3 MIS/Procedure technique

- Revise example for the new format.	MS
- Incorporate a UML activity diagram	MS
- Include a reference to work on inspection and review.	MS
- The techniques section introduction should only apply to the flowcharting technique.	MS
- Consider use of the control flow testing technique.	MS
- The test case design needs to reflect the techniques being used.	MS
- Revise technique and e-mail to Graham by 03/04/03, with the aim of website review during April and review at the May meeting.	MS
New Action.

3.2. Compatibility/Desktop technique example review

Grenville Johns, the example author, walked the meeting through the example with relevance to the comments received during the review period.

The first point of discussion was whether definitions should be included in the example, as Grenville had done, as well as in the definitions section of the document. The meeting agreed that it aided understanding of the example, but that it brought with it a problem of how to manage the same information being present in more than one place. This generated several general actions to look at how we expect people to use the web-based standards material. The discussion ranged from totally on-line, where embedded hyperlinks solve the problem, to printed material, read on the train, which would need either references to other material, or duplicate information presented.

The following actions were agreed:

03/3.4 Compatibility/Desktop

- Revise example for the new format	GJ
- Reword introduction and approach sections to clarify example.	GJ
- Differentiate between development and test activities in the scope of the document.	GJ
- Define entry and exit criteria (test policies and acceptance criteria) in the background.	GJ
- Break the example into two, for a single machine and multi machine.	GJ
- Revise technique and e-mail to Graham by 22/05/03 in time for website review and discussion at the 24/06/03 meeting.	GJ
New Action.

3.3. Security/e-business technique example review

The example author could not be present at the meeting, so the chair led the meeting through the example with regard to the comments received through the website.

The meeting initially discussed what we should be presenting for security testing. Rather than specific examples should we be looking at techniques and references to other sites for the details of specific vulnerabilities. The reasoning behind the question is that if we produce a detailed explanation of how to test for security vulnerabilities we may actually be assisting those of a malicious nature to carry out security breaches on systems.

03/3.5 Security/e-business

- Graham to discuss revisions to the e-business/security example with Trevor Price prior to the next meeting.	GT
- Julian Harty volunteered to revise the e-business/security example in light of the discussion at the meeting.	JH
- Produce revised draft of the e-business/security example and e-mail to Graham by 09/04/03, with the aim of website review during April and review at the May meeting.	JH
New Action.

4. Living Glossary – Terms for Review

The following terms were put forward for discussion:

· Reliability

· Usability

· Maintainability

· Storage

· Portability

· Security

· Performance

The meeting discussed whether we should be using standard definitions for the above terms or defining our own. Using standard definitions will require a search of the definition standards, ISO 9126, IEEE 610, ISO 14764 and others.

03/3.6 Living Glossary

- Stuart agreed (by the end of March) to search for definitions in existing standards material for the following terms:

	Reliability
	Usability
	Maintainability
	Storage
	Portability
	Security
	Performance

- Graham to include an agenda item at the May meeting to review the standard definitions for the above terms.

New Action.

5. Minutes from the Previous Meeting

03/3.7 The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed.

6. Actions from the Previous Meetings

02/2.7 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. [30/07/02] The new joiners guide will be modified to fit in with the new approach.	GT
Carried Forward.

03/2.2 Interoperability/e-business

- Stuart agreed to propose a definition for Interoperability.	SR
- Stuart agreed to propose a definition for Systems Integration Testing.	SR
New Action.

03/2.3 Conversion/DB&MIS

- Isabel agreed to update the example in line with the comments received.	IE
- Isabel offered to reformat the example in line with the proposed template (above).	IE
New Action.

03/2.4 Marketing

- Graham agreed to contact the working party and ask for volunteers to write articles publicising the work of the group.	GT
- Request Steve Allott to put together a timetable for generating and publishing articles in the following publications: The Tester Professional Tester STQE Computing/Computer Weekly	SA
- Consider a proposal for a Testing Standards Workshop at Eurostar03	SR
- Add a promotional presentation to the website.	GT
- Forward existing group presentations to Stuart to be loaded on the website.	GT/IE/SR
- Request a speaking slot at a future BCS SIGiST event.	SR
- Expand the website to include other material i.e. IEEE 610 and IEEE 829, relevant papers and articles etc.	SR
- Request Julian Harty to work out what copyright the group should apply to the material on the website.	JH
- Margaret agreed to search the web for other standards material and testing sites that we could consider linking to.	MS
- Richard Neeve volunteered to chase up potential sites that we could link to from the website, as long as they would post a reciprocal link back to our website. [NB. This action was omitted from the minutes when first published in March]	RN
New Action.

7. Any other business

The review cut-off date for the next meeting will be Thursday 3^rd April 2003.

Angela Edwards asked about whether contributor’s names were going to be posted on the website. Graham agreed to follow-up on the earlier work carried out in this area.

8. Date of Next Meeting

The dates for future SWP meetings are listed below. The next meeting (08/04/03) will review domain/technique examples currently posted to the Latest News section of the www.testingstandards.co.uk website.

Date	Time	Agenda
08/04/03	1:00pm – 4:00pm	Domain/Technique example reviews of Compatibility/Database and Procedure Testing Sign off review for Conversion/MIS-Database.
21/05/03	1:00pm – 4:00pm	Domain/Technique example reviews (TBD)
24/06/03	1:00pm – 4:00pm	Domain/Technique example reviews (TBD)

The above meetings will take place at PA (Consulting), 4^th Floor, 123 Buckingham Palace Road, London.

NB. All are welcome to attend, but please confirm attendance in advance with the secretary so that security passes can be arranged.

Graham Thomas

25/03/03

Distribution:

Attendees, Apologies, WP List, SIGIST Committee, By Request