Author

In many companies, unfortunately, underestimate the influence of
the static test on the quality of the final product. At first,
let’s start with terms to understand differences between static and
dynamic testing.

Static testing – testing of a software
development artifact, e.g., requirements, design or code, without
execution of these artifacts, e.g., reviews or static analysis.

Dynamic testing – testing that involves the
execution of the software of a component or system.

In contrast to dynamic testing, static testing finds causes of
defects and help to prevent future failures. It often has
a goal to educate team and new team members. Static testing is
done before the dynamic test and accordingly, errors found at this
stage costing us less. Always remember that the cost of finding and
fixing defects rises considerably across the life cycle.

Obviously that any software product can be reviewed. For example
requirements specifications, design specifications, code, test
plans, test specifications, test cases, test scripts, user guides,
web pages.

Two main terms in the context of static testing are review and
static analysis, the last one mainly performed by developers and
supporting by different tools.

The process of review may be formal or not. The formality of a
review process is related to factors such as the maturity of the
development process, legal or regulatory requirements or the need
for an audit trail. Formal process based on rules, checklists with
entry and exit criteria. It often includes pre-meeting preparation,
led by trained moderator (not the author) and may be called
walkthrough, technical review or inspection.

In common the process of review looks like:

1.Planning – to allocating roles, defining the
entry and exit criteria etc.,

2.Kick-off meeting. The goal of this step is to
give a short introduction on the objectives of the review and the
documents to everyone in the meeting. At customer sites, we have
measured results up to 70% more major defects found per page as a
result of performing a kick-off.

3.Individual preparations where while reviewing
individually identifies the defects, questions, and comments
according to their understanding of the document and role.

4.Review meeting, during which command discuss
found problems, make recommendations for handling the defects or
make decisions about the defects.

5.On the rework step, an author makes a
decision whether the defect has to be fixed or not. If nothing can
be done about an issue, then at least it should be indicated that
the author has considered the issue.

The review process cannot be successful if management
support is lacking and a manager didn’t allocate time
in project schedules. Sometimes managers prefer to take a part in
review meetings and this is not always a good decision,
because then appear psychological barrier, as employees may think
that their words at the meeting may lead to the assessment of
personal qualities. Other roles in review process may be called
author, moderator, inspector, scribe. Sometimes a team may
need to invite an outsource consultant if the project has
unique field-related standards or other specific requirements.

If reviews fail due to lack of preparation, this is mostly
because the wrong reviewers were chosen.

General rules for successful review meeting
are:

●Meeting is limited to two hours, if necessary, another meeting
is called, not before the next day.

●Select the documents for review that are most important in a
project.

●Checklists and roles are recommended to increase the
effectiveness of defect identification

●Continuously improve processes and tools

In conclusion, static testing is about code and documentation,
without code execution and defect found at this stage costing us
less. It is very important to have a strong system for review
meetings, in another case they will be unprofitable. This is also
good practice to use a static analysis tool to write cleaner
code.

There is a saying about review: “Reviews, like weddings, are
enhanced by including ‘something old, something new, something
borrowed, something blue”, the latest means dissenter who is hard
to please =)

A lot of companies are afraid of the review process and think
that it is a waste of time, but in practice time and money, that
was spent for it returns and makes a profit.

Just do it! Start doing reviews and start learning from every
review.