Verification and validation of the SEAL Software Assessment Tool

Software verification and validation is an aid in determining that developed software meets customer requirements, performs its intended functions correctly, and provides information about its quality and reliability. The emerging ISO 15504 international standard for software process assessment has prepared normative and informative requirements which are intended to be used to support assessments compliant to this new standard. The SEAL has prepared a tool which supports the capture of assessment data and prepares visual indications (profiles) of the assessment output. The activity of software verification and validation has been integrated into each phase of the software life cycle of the SEAL Assessment Tool. This paper reviews the software verification and validation tasks supporting each activity in the SEAL Assessment Tool development, and the techniques that were used to accomplish specific software verification and validation tasks. An ISO 9001-compliant quality management system was used to support the documentation of software verification and validation activity performed on the Tool.