The Role of Software Verification and Validation in Software Development Process
P Sujatha, G Vijaya Sankar, A Sarvottama Rao, T Satyanarayana · IETE Technical Review · 2001
An assured quality software product is essential for mission critical applications, such as the missile system. The quality of the software product is largely governed by the quality of the development process used to create it. Traditionally, the quality of the software product is assured by following the methods of Quality Assurance (QA) and Program Testing. The role of QA is to ensure that appropriate standards and process models are defined and applied. Testing ensures that the program is free of bugs. This paper describes the role of Verification and Validation (V&V), which goes beyond the role of QA and Testing, in different phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The job of V&V is to ensure that the requirements are complete, consistent and valid and to confirm that the high level design and code meet the requirements. In this paper the current state of practice for V&V is described and a case study is reported showing the process by which problem reporting and tracking takes place using a CASE tool and how V&V feeds into decision making by the development team.