Software Quality Assurance

Chapter 7 Verification and Validation

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• – understand what is meant by verification and validation (V&V);
• – understand the benefits and costs of applying V&V techniques;
• – understand the traceability technique and its usefulness;
• – learn about the IEEE 1012 V&V standard and models used in industry;
• – understand the processes and activities of V&V;
• – understand the activities of the software validation phase;
• – learn how to develop and use a V&V checklist for your project;
• – understand how to write a V&V plan for your project;
• – learn about the V&V tools available;
• – understand the relationship between V&V and the software quality assurance plan.

7.1 Introduction

In an article about safety, Leveson [LEV 00] brilliantly explains the dangers of modern software-based systems. The following text box summarizes her thinking.

The introduction of new technologies, coupled with the increasing design complexity, is starting to produce a change in the nature of accidents. Although accidents related to equipment failure are reduced, system crashes are increasingly occurring. System accidents occur during interactions between components (e.g., electromechanical, digital, and human) rather than by the failure of an individual component. The increasing use of software is closely linked to the increasing frequency of system crashes, since software usually controls the interactions between the components allowing virtually unlimited complexity ...