How can you ensure system requirements are testable throughout development?

1 Define testability criteria

Before you write or review any requirement, you should have a clear idea of what makes it testable. Testability criteria are the attributes that enable you to measure and evaluate the system's performance against the requirement. Some common testability criteria are clarity, consistency, completeness, feasibility, and traceability. You should define these criteria for each requirement type, such as functional, non-functional, or user stories, and use them as a checklist to assess the quality and testability of the requirement.

4 Review and refine requirements

Requirements are not static. They may change or evolve as the project progresses, as new information or feedback becomes available, or as the system design or implementation changes. Therefore, you should review and refine the requirements regularly to ensure they are still relevant, accurate, and testable. You should also communicate any changes to the stakeholders, developers, and testers, and update the tests accordingly.

5 Use tools and techniques

To ensure system requirements are testable throughout development, a requirements management tool can be used to document, organize, and track the requirements and their testability criteria, as well as their relationships and dependencies with other requirements, tests, and code. Additionally, modeling tools can create diagrams, charts, or prototypes that illustrate the system requirements and their interactions for testing. Automation of tests can be done with testing tools and integrated with the requirements management and development tools. Finally, verification and validation techniques can be employed to check if the system meets the requirements and if the requirements meet the needs of the stakeholders.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?