SQS Software Quality Systems

Is Non Functional Testing becoming more Business Critical?

Expert Panel Discussion

Non Functional Testing in the past was frequently overlooked as non-functional requirements were poorly elaborated to clarify business expectations regarding performance, availability, security, usability and other quality attributes. The risk and mitigation strategy was poorly recognised by the business, and budget was rarely forthcoming. Adoption of non-functional testing has changed substantially, and is becoming more important in the future. But have we matured sufficiently to recognise non-functional requirements and manage or mitigate the risks?

An interesting topic in the past was mainly “Load” and “Performance”; which became even more important for web applications where the next competitor is only one click away. Performance and availability became a business differentiator.

Due to raising expectations on response times from the users point of view, it is clear that this will continue to be more and more important in the future.

From a software development point of view the basis for response time is further complicated by modern architectures of the systems: particularly where we have services (in SOA) working together with front end or back end systems which at the end leads to more higher structural complexity.

Other aspects are more increasing in priority, such as secure software development; requirements for security are growing significantly due to regulations/compliance as well as driven from user expectations. This leads to new development principles, but also to more strict behaviour from users, who are not trained and experienced in these topics.

The growing importance can be seen from special certification schemes for Non Functional Testing and Security (ISTQB advanced level NFT, ISSECO (for secure development)).

Our panel of experts will discuss and debate these aspects of non-functional testing and the business imperative. Trends and approaches will be examined.