Risk Based Testing: Technique for Risk-based Test Case Generation and Prioritization

Nowadays, there are more projects, more competitive pressures and greater failure risk which needs to be managed with fewer resources with tighter timelines. Instead of doing more with less and risking late projects, increased costs or low quality, we need to find ways to achieve better with less. The focus of testing has to be placed on aspects of software that matter most with an aim of reducing the risk of failure as well as ensuring the quality and stability of the business applications. This can be achieved by applying the principle of Risk Based Prioritization of tests, known as Risk-based testing (RBT). The aim of Risk Based testing approach is to ensure that appropriate testing activities are identified and prioritized based on risk. The primary role of risk-based testing is to optimize available resources and time without affecting the quality of the product. In this light, this paper presents the progress different risk-based testing metrics to measure and control test cases and test activities progress, efforts and costs. In risk-based testing, the probability of a fault and the damage that this fault can cause when leading to a failure is considered for test case prioritization. Existing approaches for risk based testing provide guidelines for deriving test cases. However, those guidelines lack the level of detail and precision needed for automation. In this contribution, we introduce the risk-based testing technique RiteDAP, which automatically generates system test cases from activity diagrams and prioritizes those test cases based on risk.