Workshop Requirements Engineering for Testers

Testers use requirements as the basis of test cases, review them for testability, and often participate in general requirements reviews or inspections. Unfortunately, many testers have little knowledge or skills in requirements engineering. What level of quality and detail is realistic to expect in requirements documents? What does testability really mean? How can testers help improve requirements? These questions and more will be answered while helping the attendee to develop skills in requirements engineering. Requirements issues and solutions are illustrated with practical case studies, and hands-on classroom exercises in finding, specifying and evaluating requirements are conducted. Walk through the requirements process from a tester’s viewpoint to learn what you can should contribute to requirements quality.

Topics covered

  • Introduction to requirements
  • Documenting requirements and their acceptance criteria
  • Requirements cards and rules sets
  • Verification and validation of requirements

Learning objectives

  • Understand the importance of requirements
  • Have an overview of the requirements process
  • Know the most important rules for requirements
  • Able to write requirements using natural language and templates
  • Able to write acceptance criteria for requirements
  • Understand the significance of requirements validation
  • Able to participate in requirements reviews, e.g., inspection and walkthrough

Exercises
During this workshop attendees learn through a number of exercises how to write and review requirements (user stories) including their acceptance criteria.

Who should attend
This course is intended for all testers that are involved in writing, reviewing or using requirements and their acceptance criteria. The course is appropriate for anyone who wants an understanding of requirements engineering. The course addresses requirements engineering both from a the traditional sequential life cycle perspective as from an Agile iterative life cycle perspective.

Tutor: Erik van Veenendaal
Erik van Veenendaal (www.erikvanveenendaal.nl) is a leading international consultant and trainer, and a recognized expert in the area of software testing and requirement engineering. He is the author of a number of books and papers within the profession, one of the core developers of the TMap testing methodology and the TMMi test improvement model, and currently the CEO of the TMMi Foundation and president of Curacao Testing Qualifications Board (CTQB). Erik is a frequent keynote and tutorial speaker at international testing and quality conferences. For his major contribution to the field of testing, Erik received the European Testing Excellence Award (2007) and the ISTQB International Testing Excellence Award (2015). You can follow Erik on twitter via. @ErikvVeenendaal