Dirk Meyerhoff – författare

This book compiles current trends in software quality management and testing. Selected practitioners, experts and researchers contribute articles that provide both overviews over important topics as well as practical experience and insights from software development projects in industry. The topics include knowledge management QA and testing in the areas of web+based applications and railway/safety critical systems, cost effectiveness of quality management systems, test process improvement, testing of non-functional requirements and test tool trends.

Software quality and software testing have for decades been decisive topics in software development. However their potential and their influence on the economical side of software development and operations has been understood more clearly only in the last years. This is illustrated by the increasing number of books such as this one and conferences such as SQM(Software Quality Management Congress) and ICSTEST (In­ ternational Conference on Software Testing). The era of the commercial Internet has brought about new requirements and new challenges for software quality and testing experts. They must cope with new technolo­ gies,but more importantly with new project structures where for example the market­ ing department takes on the role of software buyer, general IT service companies are awarded development outsourcing contracts and IT generalists provide IT infrastruc­ ture and the application framework, and untrained customers become users of the software systems. Also, tougher economical conditions and narrow time frames make software development more challenging today. This, the third volume in Springer's series "software.quality@xpert.press", is a col­ lection of articles which focuses on these challenges. The authors are well-known ex­ perts of national and international reputation. They have described their current practices and experience taken from a variety of IT projects in large organisations.

1. 1 The Pressure on Information Technology (IT) "In today's environment, the ability to react quickly to change by reducing the devel­ opment life cycle in order to be first to market will give a company an important com­ petitive edge. " -James Martin The market conditions of the 21 st century put business under continual pressure. The most successful companies are those who are able to reduce their time to market, to launch initiatives before their competitors, to respond very rapidly to opportunities in the marketplace or to change direction in response to a move by the competition or a change in circumstances. All of these business initiatives rely on support from Infor­ mation Technology (IT). For a business to launch a new product in three months time, the supporting IT processes must be available and working in that three month time frame. In this fast moving environment, late IT delivery is not acceptable and may pose a major risk to the business. The marketplace of 21 st century business measures timescales in months, whereas in the past, timescales of two to three years were more typical. Internet related and e­ business projects frequently require even tighter timescales, measured in days rather than months. This need for speed puts tremendous pressure on IT departments. Pressure does not just come from the need for speed. There is also an ever-increasing rate of change within business.

Software quality and software testing have for decades been decisive topics in software development. However their potential and their influence on the economical side of software development and operations has been understood more clearly only in the last years. This is illustrated by the increasing number of books such as this one and conferences such as SQM(Software Quality Management Congress) and ICSTEST (In­ ternational Conference on Software Testing). The era of the commercial Internet has brought about new requirements and new challenges for software quality and testing experts. They must cope with new technolo­ gies,but more importantly with new project structures where for example the market­ ing department takes on the role of software buyer, general IT service companies are awarded development outsourcing contracts and IT generalists provide IT infrastruc­ ture and the application framework, and untrained customers become users of the software systems. Also, tougher economical conditions and narrow time frames make software development more challenging today. This, the third volume in Springer''s series "software.quality@xpert.press", is a col­ lection of articles which focuses on these challenges. The authors are well-known ex­ perts of national and international reputation. They have described their current practices and experience taken from a variety of IT projects in large organisations.