Risk Based Testing - How testing can help you make the right decision

There are massive pressures associated with any IT project:

• Bonuses
• Timelines
• Reputations (individuals & the company)
• Spend already committed
• Risk
• Cost
• Time
• Old systems failing & not fit for purpose
• Cost of maintaining existing systems

As testers we are inclined to try to test everything, however factors such as timescales, available resources, technical complexities and costs can prevent this from happening.

We need to use the resources we have as effectively as possible, we need to test the most important things as a priority.

The Risk profiles of a project or programme of work constantly change over the system development life-cycle. We all know that occasionally a swerve ball is thrown and we must react and adapt accordingly. Usually the project informs testing of the change and in return testing informs the project of the associated risk and details the probability of the risk involved. Testing then needs to be flexible and responsive to these changes to adapt, and to find a suitable solution to offer the best probability of success without compromising quality.