Test Reporting to Different Stakeholders

Organizations often do not pay enough attention to testing activities. They are not able to secure the operational preconditions of the testing. There are risks threatening the progress of testing and the quality of the software. These risks should be observed as early as possible. In this research the aim is to develop daily test reporting to different stakeholders in order to communicate problems and risks, to support the consideration of testing activities and to improve the transparency of testing.

The essential parts of the theory of software measurement are considered. Also generally used test reporting practices and test metrics are discussed. The stakeholder groups of testing have not been successfully defined in the literature. The target groups for test reporting have not been defined either.

In this thesis the stakeholder groups and their needs in Veikkaus are defined. A tool that meets the defined needs is developed. With the tool support daily reporting is enabled without increasing unreasonably the amount of effort required from the testing personnel. The use of the tool is investigated during a pilot project.

With the aid of the test reporting tool the problems and risks of testing activities were successfully communicated. Also the transparency of testing to decision makers was increased. Especially the tracking of progress was improved. For the stakeholder groups that did not participate to the decision making, no significant results were gained due to the lack of use.