Risk-Based Testing

Overview

THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN UPDATED AND INCORPORATED IN THE TEST DESIGN LECTURES AT http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST/testdesign/. WE WILL REMOVE THIS SECTION IN MID-2012.

Risk is the possibility of suffering harm or loss. In software testing, we think of risk on three dimensions:

• A way the program could fail
• How likely it is that the program could fail in that way
• What the consequences of that failure could be

Risk-based testing (in my view) focuses on the ways the program can fail -- imagine how the program can fail and design tests to trigger those failures. This segment of the course focuses on three classes of heuristics for generating ideas on how programs can fail:

• heuristics that focus on project risks
• failure mode and effects analysis (creating and using failure mode catalogs, bug taxonomies, etc.)
• quicktests -- cheap tests that have some value but require little preparation, knowledge, or time to perform

Slides

Videos