I am very interested in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of software testing. I am particularly interested in applying efficiency-improving techniques that have been in use in manufacturing industries for 40+ years, such as applied statistics-based “Design of Experiments” methods (which are less complicated than they sound).
My company has created a test case generating tool, Hexawise, which puts the power of highly sophisticated, well-proven optimization algorithms into a simple, easy-to-use tool. Hexawise helps users design better test plans. Hexawise enables users to create simple pairwise tests or far more thorough combinatorial tests. It maximizes test coverage with the minimum number of test cases. It is easier to understand with a few simple screen shots than with words; please see this brief introductory presentation (pdf).
Many test teams adopting Hexawise have measured dramatic benefits upon implementation (as compared to control groups who continued to use manual test case selection methods during pilot proof of concept projects), including:
- 30-40% reductions in the amount of time required to design test cases
- 100% improvements in defects identified per tester hour
- Better quality (e.g., more defects are found by the relatively small number of Hexawise-identified test cases vs. the relatively large number of manually-identified test cases)
– Justin Hunter
Hexawise Blog 