Exit criteria

Last updated

Exit criteria are the criteria or requirements which must be met to complete a specific task or process as used in some fields of business or science, such as software engineering. [1]

Usage

The term exit criteria is often used in research and development, but it could be applicable to any field where business process reengineering is (or could be) applied. The benefits of business process re-engineering — including the use of terms such as this one — could include: understanding goals clearly; using language (and data) carefully when talking about (or measuring) methods for getting things done; and taking a scientific approach towards evaluating and improving the methods that are used.[ citation needed ]

For example, for Fagan inspection, the low-level document must comply with specific exit criteria (as specified in the high-level document) before the development process can be taken to the next phase.[ citation needed ]

In telecommunications, when testing new software or hardware for release, a set of test specifications are created to test this new product to ensure that it meets minimum acceptable operational specifications. This test specification will state the minimum criteria necessary for the testing process to be considered complete and the product is ready for release IE: Exit the testing phase of the program.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

Acceptance testing Test to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met

In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests.

Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include, but not necessarily limited to:

The waterfall model is a breakdown of project activities into linear sequential phases, where each phase depends on the deliverables of the previous one and corresponds to a specialization of tasks. The approach is typical for certain areas of engineering design. In software development, it tends to be among the less iterative and flexible approaches, as progress flows in largely one direction through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment and maintenance.

Design by contract Approach for designing software

Design by contract (DbC), also known as contract programming, programming by contract and design-by-contract programming, is an approach for designing software.

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an iterative software development process framework created by the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM since 2003. RUP is not a single concrete prescriptive process, but rather an adaptable process framework, intended to be tailored by the development organizations and software project teams that will select the elements of the process that are appropriate for their needs. RUP is a specific implementation of the Unified Process.

Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development involves writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense, it includes all processes from the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, typically in a planned and structured process. Software development also includes research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.

Requirements analysis Engineering process

In systems engineering and software engineering, requirements analysis focuses on the tasks that determine the needs or conditions to meet the new or altered product or project, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, analyzing, documenting, validating and managing software or system requirements.

In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical or functional need that a particular design, product or process aims to satisfy. It is commonly used in a formal sense in engineering design, including for example in systems engineering, software engineering, or enterprise engineering. It is a broad concept that could speak to any necessary function, attribute, capability, characteristic, or quality of a system for it to have value and utility to a customer, organization, internal user, or other stakeholder. Requirements can come with different levels of specificity; for example, a requirement specification or requirement "spec" refers to an explicit, highly objective/clear requirement to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service.

Systems development life cycle Systems engineering term

In systems engineering, information systems and software engineering, the systems development life cycle (SDLC), also referred to as the application development life-cycle, is a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. The systems development life cycle concept applies to a range of hardware and software configurations, as a system can be composed of hardware only, software only, or a combination of both. There are usually six stages in this cycle: requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation.

Product lifecycle Duration of processing of products from inception, to engineering, design & manufacture

In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.

In software project management, software testing, and software engineering, verification and validation (V&V) is the process of checking that a software system meets specifications and requirements so that it fulfills its intended purpose. It may also be referred to as software quality control. It is normally the responsibility of software testers as part of the software development lifecycle. In simple terms, software verification is: "Assuming we should build X, does our software achieve its goals without any bugs or gaps?" On the other hand, software validation is: "Was X what we should have built? Does X meet the high-level requirements?"

White-box testing is a method of software testing that tests internal structures or workings of an application, as opposed to its functionality. In white-box testing an internal perspective of the system, as well as programming skills, are used to design test cases. The tester chooses inputs to exercise paths through the code and determine the expected outputs. This is analogous to testing nodes in a circuit, e.g. in-circuit testing (ICT). White-box testing can be applied at the unit, integration and system levels of the software testing process. Although traditional testers tended to think of white-box testing as being done at the unit level, it is used for integration and system testing more frequently today. It can test paths within a unit, paths between units during integration, and between subsystems during a system–level test. Though this method of test design can uncover many errors or problems, it has the potential to miss unimplemented parts of the specification or missing requirements. Where white-box testing is design-driven, that is, driven exclusively by agreed specifications of how each component of software is required to behave then white-box test techniques can accomplish assessment for unimplemented or missing requirements.

A Fagan inspection is a process of trying to find defects in documents during various phases of the software development process. It is named after Michael Fagan, who is credited as being the inventor of formal software inspections.

Purchasing is the process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations.

Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.

Software project management is an art and science of planning and leading software projects. It is a sub-discipline of project management in which software projects are planned, implemented, monitored and controlled.

Functional specification

A functional specification in systems engineering and software development is a document that specifies the functions that a system or component must perform.

A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.

A test strategy is an outline that describes the testing approach of the software development cycle. The purpose of a test strategy is to provide a rational deduction from organizational, high-level objectives to actual test activities to meet those objectives from a quality assurance perspective. The creation and documentation of a test strategy should be done in a systematic way to ensure that all objectives are fully covered and understood by all stakeholders. It should also frequently be reviewed, challenged and updated as the organization and the product evolve over time. Furthermore, a test strategy should also aim to align different stakeholders of quality assurance in terms of terminology, test and integration levels, roles and responsibilities, traceability, planning of resources, etc.

A phase-gate process is a project management technique in which an initiative or project is divided into distinct stages or phases, separated by decision points.

References

  1. Rothman, Johanna (2002). "Release Criteria: Is This Software Done? How to know if your software is ready to release". Software Testing & Quality Engineering Magazine. SQE. 4 (2): 30–35.