In order to have clear and obvious objectivity during the integration and systems testing phase of the product life cycle, many organizations establish an independent test team that focuses on those functions. Such a testing group is expected to have application knowledge and understanding, a test methodology, testing experience, knowledge of the test environment, and test team members that exhibit creativity, insight, determination, and analytical ability.

While it is often not the fault of the integration and systems test group, integration and systems testing engineers are not involved enough in the early life-cycle phases of the product life cycle. Independent test representatives from the integration and systems test group should be involved in peer reviews of product or systems requirements specifications and the engineering discipline-allocated requirements specifications such as the software requirements specification or the hardware requirements specification.

Independent test representatives should be involved in peer reviews of interface specifications and architecture specifications. Experienced test engineers can best answer questions such as: Is this requirement testable? Even before the various specifications are developed, independent test representatives can be very effective by participating on multidisciplined requirements elicitation teams together with systems engineers, software engineers, marketing, program management, design experts, and so forth to help the stakeholders understand better what the testing implications are of their wants, needs, constraints, and interface requirements.

To support integrated project management, test group representatives should work with the project manager and lead designers to develop an integration strategy and determine the integration...