Key Points

• The focus is laid on restructuring the test process: Define clear test exit criteria. Divide integration into different levels. Define integration levels feature-oriented, not archtitecture-centric. Augment project management by an integration matrix. Move system test to the integration phase of each increment. Automate system test to enable regression. Change configuration management to distinguish between error handling and development of next increment. Change review techniques to deal with component additions. Change requirements engineering and change requests.

Presentation Abstract

In recent years pressure on the communication industry concerning a shorter time-to-market has been steadily growing. This demands for a significant reduction of project-specific development times. At the same time complexity is growing tremendously, especially for the software components. The interaction of the continuously growing number of new features reaches a dimension which is hardly manageable. As one solution to both problems incremental development processes have been proposed. They allow to serve the market at hardly any time by in the same time splitting up the system into pieces of manageable size. Furthermore, such processes permit a validation of the system from the user's perspective already in early stages of development. However, the effort and complexity of introducing an incremental process should not be underestimated. In this paper we propose a detailed roadmap for such an improvement goal by presenting well-defined and fine-granular steps of process change. They start from later stages of development and move then on to earlier stages. The focus is on test process improvements, but hints for all other relevant and concerned process areas are given as well. The work is based on experiences made with the development of communication devices within the Siemens company.

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