Towards a zero-defect product-the End-To-End test process

The competitive market place today demands the best of everything-quality, cost and schedule. The ontime delivery of an error-free product at minimal cost are standards that demanding customers expect and good suppliers continually strive to meet. It is no easy task to strike an effective balance where quality is accomplished without sacrificing schedules and incurring unplanned costs-and to do so consistently, release after release. There is no silver bullet. However, there is a great deal of merit to establishing a well thought out process before-hand, planning the product release steps carefully, and monitoring and controlling the entire release cycle with discipline. I propose to share, from a tester point of view, the approach and experiences from the ontime, at-budget, zero defect delivery of one software development project-approximately 400,000 lines of code, with a very large and diverse customer base. In my opinion, the apriori definition and, more importantly, the buy-in from all the players in the project for the End-to-End test process and the disciplined release management of the project contributed significantly to the success story for this software project.