Managing the Testing Process: Practical Tools and Techniques for Managing Hardware and Software Testing

A.12. Standards and Regulations

Especially in the case of safety and radiation, testers have standards that specify the testing to be performed or at least what constitutes success or failure. In telecommunications, the NEBS standard applies to servers or other systems to be installed in telephone system central offices. Most governments have standards for safety and radiation, such as the United States Underwriters Laboratories and Federal Communication Commission, respectively. The bottom of a portable system to be sold in many countries often looks like a high-tech alphabet soup of the seals and logos of various regulatory agencies scattered around the globe.

One thing to remember about standards enforced by regulatory bodies is that government bureaucracies are not stakeholders in the success of your product. They will not care much if, say, your system's failure to pass a particular test is blocking its delivery to paying customers and costing your company thousands of dollars per day while the window of opportunity to capture the market closes. As a test manager, this means you must pay careful attention to these standards, allow for plenty of time to complete testing (including cycle time should the tests fail), and escalate blockages to management quickly. No matter how well-functioning your bug triage committee is, it cannot decide to waive or defer a bug related to the failure to meet government regulatory standards.

Not all regulations and standards are enforced by ...