8.1 Goal of system verification

System verification is typically poorly planned, haphazardly executed, and understaffed. Is it any wonder why? Product design, the sexy part of the project, serves as the development centerpiece. Engineers want to create, and as a result naturally migrate to a design role, avoiding a career in test at any cost. Unfortunately, in most cases, if the test function is treated as a peripheral activity, the project experiences the following turbulence:

• The product does not work as expected.

• Designers cannot both support design and testing activities and maintain schedule.

• Test coverage is poor.

• Product development progress slows to a crawl.

• Confusion becomes commonplace in both the management and design ranks.

• Project control digresses to counterproductive micromanagement.

Classical thinking on this subject would have you believe that fixing the front end design effort is in order, perhaps through better process or something equivalent. The goal in this development makeover is usually to reduce the amount of time spent testing the product by first preventing the inclusion of defects earlier in the design. There is the notion that by detecting and removing defects early during the design and implementation phase, there will be a significant reduction in costs associated with fixing bugs that are found much later in the development [1]. The design quality in, don t test it in approach forces emphasis on the following:

• Auguring an accurate schedule;

• Getting the initial requirements right;

• Reviewing interface designs prior to implementation;

• Employing code inspections;

• Executing unit tests that exercise...