An Industrial Case Study on Test Cases as Requirements Elizabeth Bjarnason, Michael Unterkalmsteiner (BTH), Emelie Engström, Markus Borg

Agile == no requirements doc?

An Industrial Case Study on Test Cases as Requirements Elizabeth Bjarnason, Michael Unterkalmsteiner, Emelie Engström, Markus Borg

Research Questions •  How does TCR fulfill role of reqts? •  How & Why is TCR applied? 3 case companies & 12 interviews -  De facto practice -  BDD with tool support -  Part of agile transition

Reqts ATC

Company A: De Facto Practice Computer NW equipment Company: 150 employees Project: 10 p, 6-18 mos

Market-driven reqts

•  Strong testing, weak RE •  Benefits

–  Efficient in small team –  Easier ”reqts” navigation for

engineers

•  Challenges – Communication of business

reqts changes

– RE info missing, e.g. prio, stakeholder

–  Tc correctness

Company B: BDD with Tool Support Consultancy firm Company: 135 employees Project: 4-10 people

Bespoke reqts

•  Established practice •  Tool → Executable spec •  Benefits

–  Impr customer collaboration – Business – Dev alignment – Efficient regression testing

•  Challenges – Active customer involvement – Complex reqts: QR and UX – Maintaining TCR

Company C: Part of Agile Transition

Telecommunications Company: 1,000 employee Project: 400-500 p, 24 mos

Bespoke + Market-driven

•  Shorten lead times •  Benefits

– Business – Dev alignment – Comm changes – Up to date documentation

•  Challenges – Collaboration btw competncs –  Tool integration

Requirements Elicitation & Validation •  Benefits

– Cross-functional communication – Align roles to common goals – Mitigate ”specify solution” barrier

•  Challenges – Customer-Dev collaboration – Active customer involvement – RE & Techn. Competence – Complex requirements

Requirements Verification •  Benefits

– Regression testing –  Improved reqts quality: verifiable

& clear –  Test coverage

•  Challenges – Quality requirements

Requirements Management incl Tracing •  Benefits

– Aligns Business - Testing – Communication of change –  For some cases, reqts-test

tracing

•  Challenges –  Locating ”requirements” – Missing reqts context –  Test case maintenance –  Tools

Future Work

•  Follow-up on Companies A & C •  How improve the way test cases are defined as reqts

– RE aspects – QR as test cases

•  When is more or less reqts documentation needed?

Q:s? Reflections?

Elicitation & Validation

Verification

Reqts Mngmt incl Traceability