Applying Verification & Validation (V&V) Standards to Software Development and Testing

Course Description

Software products and systems need assurance adequate for the importance of their use. To the extent their failure will incur significant social, financial, or safety costs, they need to be systematically assessed and authoritatively appraised. Verification and validation (V&V) is a well-proven systems engineering approach to quality assurance. It draws upon static and dynamic methods for reducing risk in the development, acquisition, and use of the software.

This course teaches the updated IEEE 1012-2004 Standard and will treat the major components of V&V in a concrete manner, weaving ongoing cases studies. Participants will engage in active analysis, decision-making, and discussions with one another and receive their own copy of the IEEE Standard to take home with them at the end of the course. Conducted by a seasoned industry veteran who has been active on the IEEE standards working group for V&V, this course addresses the development and application of V&V techniques to a wide range of contemporary issues including what you need to do within V&V to support CMMI.

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Duration

2 day(s)

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Time

9 - 5 pm

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Price

$1,500

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Labs

Exercises will be used throughout the course to reinforce V&V concepts.

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Intended Audience

You may need to organize, manage, or participate in verification and validation tasks within a development or acquisition project. You may have to assess the need for V&V activities or to evaluate potential V&V contractors. It may be mandated for certain critical applications and has been successfully used in major projects by numerous government organizations including NASA and the FAA. If assurance of software products is your concern, this course will provide the tools needed for success.

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Prerequisites

Acquaintance with software development or acquisition issues. Some insights into project management, quality assurance, or testing would be helpful.

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Outline

What is V&V?

Concepts

Definitions

Historical development

Standards and best practices

Why do V&V?

Motivation

Benefits

Who does V&V?

Skills sets

Organizational alternatives

Type and degrees of independence (IV&V)

Overview of the V&V Effort

Integrated across the lifecycle

Mapped against other frameworks and models

Relationship to test planning, design, conduct, and reporting

Contributions to quality and project management

Establishing Integrity Levels

Error identification

Likelihood of occurrence of errors

Error consequences

Static Techniques

Inspections

Walkthroughs

Audits

Reviews

Dynamic Techniques

Prototyping

Simulation

Unit Testing

Integration Testing

System Testing

Acceptance Testing

Testing Lifecycle

Test Plan generation and verification

Test Design generation and verification

Test Procedure generation and verification

Test Execution and verification

Test Results reporting

Performance of V&V Tasks

Selection of tasks according to integrity levels

Range (breadth) of performance

Intensity (depth) of performance

Rigor (formality) of performance

V&V for All Software Lifecycle Processes

Management

Acquisition

Supply

Development

Operation

Maintenance

Independence of V&V

Technical

Financial

Managerial

Special Concerns

Hazard Analysis

Risk Analysis

Security Issues

Regulatory Compliance