Documentation Standards

Verification & Validation Results

Version:

CS 4500, University of Utah
Spring 2008


Contents of this document:


Audience and goals of V&V Results

The Verification and Validation Results document describes the outcome of the various activities described in the V&V Plan. This report should be started as soon as component test is underway. Each section should be completed as the associated phase is completed.

There are several audiences for the V&V Results. Quality assurance will use the V&V Results to help monitor the quality of the product. Management will use the V&V Results in order to understand progress toward quality goals and planned completion dates. The development team will use the V&V Results to evaluate both the product and the process. The customer will want the results of acceptance testing.


Considerations for V&V Results

The exact contents of the V&V Results document will depend on the V&V Plan. It is preferable to summarize outcomes rather than to give overly detailed results. If appropriate, detailed outcomes can be included as appendices. Tables, figures, and charts are excellent tools for clearly presenting the results.

Some questions that can be considered in writing the report:


V&V Results outline

Each section in the V&V Results document should be related back to the relevant sections in the V&V Plan.

1. Introduction and overview

Provide appropriate opening sections; design this based on the information that you were asked to give in other documents.

2. Summary of Results

Assess the overall success of the V&V activities. Be specific in talking about about types of problems that were encountered and how they were resolved. This section is an "executive summary." Ensure that you really discuss what has happened thus far in the V&V process! You may also summarize the work that remains.

3. Results from reviews, walkthroughs, inspections, and audits

This section discusses what was planned for in the Project Plan and VVP. Explain what was done, what worked as planned, what you were unable to execute as described.

4. Results from testing

This section refers to what was planned for in the VVP. Explain what was done, what worked as planned, what you were unable to execute as described in the VVP.

4.1 Summary of component test

Use a logical format (such as a table or a list) to discuss the outcome of the component testing. It is not sufficient to simply write "passed" or "failed." This section should describe the setting where the testing was done, who was responsible, how long it took, what went well or poorly with each test, the problems that were revealed, and any work that could not be completed.

4.2 Summary of integration test / testing product as a whole

The content of this section should cover the same issues as described for section 4.1.

5. Evaluation of the process

This section will allow you to reflect on how well your team's testing process worked.

5.1 Evaluation of test cases

Based on the experiences your team gained in using these test cases, what should have been done differently? What worked well? Are there test cases you should have included but did not? What did you add as the process went on? Which test cases turned out to be somewhat unnecessary?

5.2 Results from defect tracker

This section will present a summary of the statistics that can be generated through the defect tracking tool.

5.3 Lessons learned

Based on the experiences your team gained in doing testing, what should you have done differently? What worked well? These reflections should give a good idea of your team's discoveries during this process, both about the product's shortcomings and about the testing process itself. There should also be an analysis of the trends and lessons that can be gleaned from the statistics. The documentation on the defect tracker suggests some of the types of trends that one can glean from the various reports.

6. Outcome of acceptance test and delivery

This section should be directly related to what your team wrote about acceptance test in the VVP. Explain what acceptance tests you actually conducted, what worked as planned, and what you were unable to execute as described in the VVP. It is important that this section show a strong correspondence between what you said you would do in the relevant sections of the VVP and what you report here.

7. Summary of open issues

This section will address any open issues from the defect reports. If any defects are unresolved, they should be discussed in detail here.

8. Additional information

Use this section to capture information that was relevant to the verification and validation process but that you did not feel was appropriate for any of the earlier sections.



Page prepared by Vicki L. Almstrum. Department of Computer Sciences at UT Austin.
Modified by Thomas C. Henderson.  School of Computing, Univ of Utah