CH03. L02. Review Process
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the nuances of software testing, contrasting dynamic and static testing approaches. It emphasizes the review process within static testing, detailing its types, steps, and roles involved. The script outlines the progression from informal to formal reviews, highlighting the structured six-step formal review process, including planning, kickoff, individual preparation, review meetings, rework, and follow-up. It also discusses the importance of clear objectives, team selection, and organization for a successful review, ultimately aiming to improve software quality.
Takeaways
- 📚 The script discusses the distinction between dynamic and static testing in software development.
- 🔍 It delves into the two main components of static testing: reviews and static analysis tools that examine code without execution.
- 👥 The review process involves different roles, including the manager, moderator, author, reviewers, and scribe, each with specific responsibilities.
- 📝 Reviews can be informal or formal, with the latter having a structured process with steps, rules, and documentation.
- 🚀 The formal review process consists of six steps: Planning, Kickoff Meeting, Individual Preparation, Review Meeting, Rework, and Follow-up.
- 🔑 The success of the review process hinges on clear objectives, the right team selection, and effective communication of identified issues.
- 🔬 Static analysis tools are used in the coding stage to detect defects and issues against coding standards before code execution.
- 📈 The importance of the review process lies in its ability to improve software quality and ensure adherence to project requirements and standards.
- 📋 The script outlines the different types of reviews, ranging from informal to highly formal processes like Inspections and Walkthroughs.
- 👥 The roles within the review process are crucial for its success, with the manager initiating the process, the moderator facilitating discussions, and the author addressing identified defects.
- 📝 Documentation is key in formal reviews, ensuring that all findings and resolutions are recorded for future reference and process improvement.
Q & A
What is the main difference between dynamic testing and static testing?
-Dynamic testing involves running the software and observing its behavior, whereas static testing is the process of examining the software without executing it, typically through reviews and static analysis tools.
What are the two main sections of static testing mentioned in the script?
-The two main sections of static testing are reviews and static analysis. Reviews involve examining documents from each stage of software development, while static analysis uses tools to examine the code without execution.
What is the purpose of using static analysis tools during the coding stage?
-Static analysis tools are used to review the code without running it, identifying defects and problems against coding standards that may cause issues during the software development process.
Can you explain the role of a reviewer in the review process of static testing?
-The reviewer is responsible for examining documents from the software development stages, identifying potential defects, and providing feedback to improve the quality of the software before the implementation phase.
What are the types of reviews mentioned in the script, and how do they differ in formality?
-The types of reviews mentioned are informal reviews, walkthroughs, technical reviews, and inspections. They differ in formality from informal, which is amicable and verbal, to very formal, which follows strict procedures and documentation.
What are the six steps or activities involved in a formal review process?
-The six steps are: 1) Planning, 2) Kickoff meeting, 3) Individual preparation, 4) Review meeting, 5) Rework, and 6) Follow up. These steps ensure a structured and documented review process.
What is the role of the manager in the review process?
-The manager's role includes deciding the start time of the review process, setting the required time for the review in the project schedule, and checking whether the process objectives were achieved after the review.
What is the difference between the roles of the moderator and the author in a review meeting?
-The moderator is responsible for organizing and conducting the review meeting, leading the review process, and mediating between different viewpoints. The author, on the other hand, is responsible for writing the documents to be reviewed and addressing any defects found during the review.
What is the purpose of the walkthrough review type?
-The purpose of a walkthrough is to provide learning, understanding, and to find defects in the documents. It involves the author leading the review meeting and can be either informal or formal.
What are the factors that contribute to the success of the review process?
-Success factors include having clear and predefined objectives, choosing the best team for the review, presenting and discussing bugs in a positive and objective manner, fostering trust, and organizing and managing time effectively.
How does the inspection review differ from the technical review in terms of formality and process?
-The inspection review is more formal and expansive than the technical review. It requires a trained moderator, more structured roles and preparations, and the collection of a review process matrix. It focuses on finding defects and ensuring the review is conducted properly and acceptably.
Outlines
🔍 Introduction to Static Testing and Review Process
This paragraph introduces the concept of static testing, distinguishing it from dynamic testing, and then delves into the specifics of static testing. It is divided into two main sections: reviews and static analysis. Reviews involve examining documents at each stage of software development, from requirements to coding, by designated reviewers. Static analysis is performed using tools that analyze code without execution to identify defects against coding standards. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of the review process, its types, application, activities, roles, responsibilities, and its significance in the software development lifecycle. It also outlines the difference between formal and informal reviews, the steps involved in a formal review, and the factors that determine the choice of review process.
📝 Roles and Responsibilities in the Formal Review Process
The second paragraph focuses on the roles and responsibilities within the formal review process. It details the manager's tasks, such as deciding the start time, allocating time in the project schedule, and checking if review objectives are met. The moderator's role includes organizing and conducting review meetings, leading the document review, and mediating team viewpoints. The author is responsible for document correction based on review feedback. Reviewers, or 'checkers'/'inspectors', are selected for their technical expertise and are tasked with identifying document defects. The scribe or recorder documents all review activities, including bugs and meeting minutes. The paragraph also discusses the types of reviews, ranging from informal to formal, and their characteristics, such as the informal review's amicable and verbal nature, and the more structured formal reviews like Walkthrough, Technical Review, and Inspection.
🛠️ Review Types and Success Factors for Effective Static Testing
The final paragraph explores the different types of reviews in more depth, including the informal review, Walkthrough, Technical Review, and Inspection. Each type has unique characteristics and purposes, such as the Walkthrough's focus on team learning and understanding, the Technical Review's emphasis on discussing and solving technical problems, and the Inspection's goal of finding defects. The paragraph concludes with key factors for a successful review process, such as clear objectives, the right team selection, positive and objective discussion of bugs, trust, choosing the appropriate review type, and effective organization and time management. It stresses that the review process is not about individual evaluation but about improving software quality.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Dynamic Testing
💡Static Testing
💡Reviews
💡Static Analysis Tools
💡Formal Review
💡Informal Review
💡Walkthrough
💡Technical Review
💡Inspection
💡Success Factors
Highlights
Dynamic and static testing are distinguished as two fundamental approaches in software testing.
Static testing is further divided into document reviews and static analysis using tools to detect coding standards violations.
Document reviews begin from the project's inception and extend through to the coding phase, involving various roles and responsibilities.
Static analysis tools are employed during the coding phase to identify defects without executing the code.
The review process is explored in depth, including its types, application, activities, participant roles, and its overall importance.
Reviews range from informal to formal, with the latter involving systematic procedures and documentation.
Formal reviews are characterized by a structured approach with defined steps, rules, and documentation.
Six key steps in the formal review process are outlined, starting with planning and concluding with follow-up.
The kickoff meeting is crucial for distributing documents and clarifying review objectives and process details.
Individual preparation involves reviewing documents for potential defects and preparing questions and comments.
The review meeting is where team members discuss individual findings, collect comments, and address defects.
Rework involves the document author resolving identified defects and documenting any changes.
Follow-up ensures that all identified defects are resolved and the review objectives and exit criteria are met.
Roles within the formal review process include the manager, moderator, author, reviewers, and scribe, each with specific responsibilities.
The manager's role is to initiate the review, allocate time, and verify if objectives are achieved post-review.
The moderator organizes and leads review meetings, coordinates viewpoints, and follows up on tasks.
The author is responsible for document creation, modifications, and addressing review feedback.
Reviewers are selected for their technical expertise to identify document defects and suggest improvements.
The scribe records all proceedings, including bugs and discussion points, and takes meeting minutes.
Four types of reviews are detailed: informal review, walkthrough, technical review, and inspection, each with unique characteristics and purposes.
Success factors for the review process include clear objectives, the right team selection, positive and objective discussion of bugs, trust, and organization.
Transcripts
So far we've talked about the difference between
the dynamic testing & the static testing.
then we got deeper and divided
the static testing into 2 sections:
one section for the reviews.
It is responsible for reviewing all
documents resulted from each stage of
the software development stages,
that we work from the project's beginning.
Starting from the requirements till
we reach the coding stage, which is the
responsibility of the reviewers with all their roles.
The second section is for
the static analysis.
This is when we reach the coding stage.
Here we will use some programs
called "Static Analysis Tools".
Their function is to review this code
without running it. we will execute it
and find most of the defects
and problems against
the coding standard, which is likely
to appear when we reach
the code execution stage during
the software development.
Let's go more deeper and know more
about the reviews process.
we will know its types, how to apply it,
what are the activities included in it,
the role of every one participating in it
and his responsibility through this process.
and finally, what is
the importance of the review process itself?
how can it help us?
what factors that make it work
as a basic process, before starting
the implementation of our software?
Before we talk about
the review process in details, we should
know first that types of reviews
move gradually from the informal process
or what we call not formal,
so I can do it with my team friendly,
to the systematic / formal process.
this process is the formal way that
has steps, rules, implementation procedures
and documentation.
First of all, what is the difference
between the formal and informal reviews?
The informal is done verbally.
This means that we don't need to
document it, as if the team
is discussing an issue and they
are exchanging views about the document in a friendly way.
For the formal review,
it has a special way for implementation
according to its type. This is the way
that the time is obliged to apply.
and by the end of this process
we must document these reviews to help
us in our work as testing and development.
So who will determine and choose the way
of implementing reviews to be followed?
what determines the way is some factors
including: the size of development process.
do we have legal or regulatory requirements?
do we need an audition,
which we call Audit trial?
To make any formal reviews,
we always have 6 steps or
activities that should be done respectively.
Step 1:Planning,
through which we can define
the entry criteria.
Here we should ask whether the documents are
ready to start the review process or no?
we also define the review criteria
and what are the roles
and the persons that should be there
and what their responsibilities are,
and what are the sections to be reviewed?
we should also define the exit criteria,
in which we set when we will
stop the review process.
Step 2: The kickoff meeting
in which we distribute
the documents to be reviewed
on all people who will participate in
the process. we should clarify the objectives
that are required to be fulfilled, and
explain the process in details.
Step 3 :Individual Preparation.
It means that each person, who
will participate in the review process
and took some of the documents to
review them in the previous step,
will read, understand and
prepare his part individually,
and check if there are potential defects.
He should prepare all his questions
and comments to be ready
for the discussion in
the review meeting, which will happen
in the next step.
Step 2: The Review meeting
In this stage, we start having
a meeting to the whole team who participate
in the review process, and took part of
the documents to prepare it in the previous step,
to discuss the results of each one
of the team separately.
Also, we collect all the comments
and notes they've recorded.
Then we talk about the defects we've found,
and what are the suggestions
with the way to resolve them.
Here, we've reached Step 5
which is Rework. here we
get all the documents, after reviewing
and finding defects, to the author,
who is the owner,
who wrote the documents,
to start resolve the defects found
and to clarify the unclear parts,
and to document any changes happened
to the original documents.
then he keep the last correct and
updates based on the reviewers' comments
Step 6: Follow up
which is very important
through this step we make sure that
whether the defects we found in
the documents reviewed were resolved
or not. Then we start collecting some
matrix about the defects,
its number, what were resolved, what
were not ...and so on.
we will also check whether we've achieved the objective
of the review process and did we reached
the exit criteria or not.
Now, we know the 6 main steps
that are required to conduct
the formal review process
which can be divided into
sub-steps as shown in this figure.
Remember the informal review which
is done in a verbal and amicable way
among the team members, without the need of
preparation or even documenting
what was discussed.
You may notice that
the formal review is a process with
many activities and steps
and need a large team to share in it.
Each one of them has a particular
role with responsibilities and tasks
that he has to do.
let's know more about these roles
and responsibilities in details.
The first role is the manger.
who has 3 main tasks,
the 1st one is to decide the start time
of the review process. 2nd one
is to set the required time for
the review process to assign
the enough time for it in the project
schedule.3rd task is
to check, after finishing the review process,
whether the process objectives were
achieved or not.
Let's move to the second role which is
the Moderator, he is responsible for
organizing and conducting the review
meeting. He also leads the process of reviewing
the document or a group of documents
in addition, he follows up
executing tasks after the review meeting.
Finally, one of his important tasks is
to mediate between points of view and
to coordinate the different views of the team members.
This assigns him to a great responsibility
for the success of the review process.
The Third role is the Author,
who wrote the documents
to be reviewed and he is the original
owner, who we always get back to
modify and fix any defects
appear during the review.
The fourth role is the reviewers, they are
the team who will do the review process
for the selected documents.
They are chosen according to
requirements of the review process.
as some of them should have a technical
experience and background about a particular field
or a particular business domain.
So through their experience , they will be useful for
reviewing the specialized parts
in the document.
we can also call them "checkers" or "inspectors".
After a good preparation, they
become able to identify
what the bugs of a document are
and to discuss the suggestions to fix them
we should take into consideration
that they must participate
in any meetings related to the review stage.
The last role is the person who is responsible
for recording and documenting all
what happen during the review process
including recording all the bugs,
obstacles and the points
discussed during the meeting.
he also takes the minutes of meeting.
this is what we call :
"Scribe"or "Recorder".
Now, we have talked about the 5
main roles of the team that will participate
in the formal review process.
We also described the responsibilities
of every one of them. Here we will
talk again about the types of reviews,
which grade from the very informal
to very formal.
Let's learn more about these types
in details, and know the characteristics
and specifications of each type.
This figure shows 4 types of reviews:
the first type is the informal review.
Starting from the second type
till the fourth one,they belong to
the formal reviews group, but
in different formality degrees.
All the 4 types are:
Informal review,
Walkthrough, Technical Review
and Inspection.
We should take care that every type of
the 4 types has a group of
the characteristics and main purposes
which we will know and
differentiate between them so as not to get confused.
The first type is the informal,its characteristics
as we mentioned before,
is that its done in a amicable and verbal form.
which means that it has no definite steps
to be followed, and it is not necessary
to document the results we got from it.
Regarding the extent of its use,
this depends on the person
who we ask his help
and whether he is a specialist or not.
The main objective of this type
"The main purpose" of this review:
It is an inexpensive way to get some benefit.
It is a way that won't cost a lot of money
to have the view of a specialist.
The second type is the Walkthrough.
its characteristics are that
the author is the one who leads
the review meeting. It has
scenarios, dry runs,
and peer groups. There are also
open--ended sessions. we can optionally
organize a pre-meeting preparation of reviewers.
we can also have a review report,
and prepare a list of findings,
optionally, and it can have
scribe who is not the author.
we should note that
implementing this way may be
informal or we get it till it
becomes very formal.
Note that the scribe is not always
in this type of review
and any member of the team
can do his role.
For the purpose of this type,
it is very clear from its name,
walkthrough. it means that the team
read the documents more than once,
raise questions and know each single
info from the author.
so its purposes are:
learning, gaining,
understanding, and finding defects.
The third type is "Technical Review".
As in the previous types, there is also
a review for documents. However,
this time it's not between the team
and the author, this time, there are
specialists of high technical
background. Sometimes
there is management participation.
For the person responsible
for managing meetings
for this type of reviews, he must be
a trained moderator. This is not
the author. The purpose of this type
of reviews is that we discuss,
make decisions,
evaluate all the alternatives,
try to find defects,
and we solve all the technical problems.
Finally,we check conformance to
specifications and standards.
the last type we will talk about
is the very formal.
we also call it the Inspection review
or Peer review.
In general, this type has the same
characteristics of the technical review
but more expansively.
This means that the one who leads this type
is also a trained moderator.
the review can be done whether
by persons of the same level of efficiency
from the team, or some times
we need more specialized persons
Moreover, the distribution of roles, preparations
before meetings, and preparing the checklist
with the tasks required to be done
is not optional in this type.
In addition to that, we collect here the matrix
about the current review process
Notice that the presence of the Reader
and process improvement is optional
in this type of reviews because the moderator
is the one who present the report.
Also determining when to start
or to end the review in a proper
and acceptable way for the program
required to be produced is the responsibility
of the moderator with the rest of team.
for the main purpose of this type of review
it is finding defects.
Now we've finished the 4 types
of reviews, and there is only one last point
which is very important
"what are the factors that we should keep eye on to grant the success of the review process?"
what does that mean?
This means, what are the success factors of the review?
first of all, you should have
clear and predefined objectives
for the review process.
i.e. why do you conduct the review?
second, the best choice of the team
which is chosen according to
the objectives of review.
as long as the team of the review process
are on a high level of understanding
the documents,their ability
to test and prepare for the review process
will be faster.
Another very important point which is
the bugs that appear during the review.
They have to be presented and discussed
with the whole team in a positive and objective form.
Not only identifying objectives,
and the positive spirit are important
but also trust is important.
At the end, this review is not for
evaluating individuals, however,
it is for evaluating and improving
the software quality.
Notice that choosing the best type of
reviews and assigning the responsibilities
of the participants,
besides the checklist
all that are done according to
what suites the software objectives
and the technical backgrounds
of the reviewers.
sometimes, there are pre-prepartion
and pre-training to know
how to work in the review stage.
Finally,
at any stage of work in our life,
as much as you are organized
and have time management,
the objective you target will be easier
to be reached. Here, the same rule applies
as much as the organization is correct
and following the plan, so the review
will be successful, and there
will be enough time to all the activities
done during the process.
Now, we've finished the second point
of the static testing, which is Review.
we've understood its types, the activities inside it
and the way of executing them,
the roles of the participants,
in addition to what are the factors
that help the review process to succeed.
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