Requirements Tracebality Matrix

A matrix is a table that maps one variable to another.

A requirements traceability matrix or RTM maps requirements to test cases.

Example - Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)

Background

For any project, the business analyst builds requirements based on business needs. The BA prioritizes the requirements as critical (Level 1), major (Level 2) and good to have (Level 3).

Based on these requirements, the QA does his test design. For each requirement, the QA plans and scripts his test cases. At the end of this design, the QA builds a RTM and verifies that each requirement built by the BA will be tested by at least one test case.

That is the purpose of Requirements Traceability Matrix. The table what is RTM, clearly lays out what is called Test Coverage.

For different types of testing, there could be different requirements.

• System testing has module level technical requirements based on the solution for the business requirements.
• System Integrated Testing has business scenario requirements.
• User Acceptance Testing has user prioritized business scenario requirements.
• Performance testing has non functional requirements (NFR).

Sign Off decision based on RTM and test coverage

However in each case, a sign off authority would sign off the test design only by checking the test coverage based on the Requirements Traceability Matrix.

Go/No Go Decision

Another use of RTM is to take a Go/No Go decision. 

It is possible that in the planned amount of time, QA could not execute all scheduled tests. In this case, the QA lead and the BA can check the RTM and see which requirements were not tested 100%. Now based on the priority of the partially tested requirements, the leads can easily decide if the software is fit to move to production.

Testing vs Quality Assurance

Popular Definitions

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Quality Assurance (QA) is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and ISO 9000 defines it as "part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled".  ( refer Wikipedia)

Quality Assurance is the prevention of faults by inspecting & testing.

 

Quality Control (QC) or Testing 

This defect prevention in quality assurance differs subtly from defect detection and rejection which happens in quality control.

Testing (or Quality Control) is detection of faults by actual sampling and inspection.

Related Web References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUASiRvGkeU

http://asq.org/pub/sqp/past/vol3_issue3/tian.html

Quality and testing

What is Quality?

The Quality Processes

Before we get into quality assurance, we need to have a clear understanding of what is quality.

All projects have one or more objectives. The objectives are translated into requirements. Requirements could be functional or non functional.

Quality is the degree to which the end product meets the customer or user requirements.

What is Testing?

Testing is a set of activities to find defects in the end product. It is a process which helps to measure the divergence of the end product from the agreed requirements.

A defect is a finding where the end product does not follow a specific requirement.

Testing has evolved with time. Testing activities, tools and techniques have been defined based on the type of requirement. In order to find more defects in less time, the testing process and methodology continues to improve with new experiences.

History

The Indus Valley Civilization

Quality and testing have been prevalent in one form or the other right from the ancient history of mankind. If this was not true, we would not be able to see quality examples of application of  architecture, books, science, social principles and medicine even today.

Quality in Manufacturing

Application

The principles of quality and testing are being applied to projects in almost every field that we can think of - Software, construction, manufacturing, government, defense, medical sciences and retail. Interestingly, one can apply these principles even in the area of spirituality to measure one's progress on this path.