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Time, cost, tests, bugs, and failures are some of the fundamental metrics specific to software testing. Derived test metrics can be made by combining these fundamental metrics. The problem is, only time and cost are clearly defined by standard units. Tests, bugs, and failures are usually defined locally-that is, much like grandmother's cookies, their definitions are local and only exist inside the organization.
In this chapter, I have introduced fundamental metrics that you can use to answer the questions:
How big is it?
How long will it take to test it?
How good were our tests? (test effectiveness)
How many new bugs did the users find?
How many of the bugs that were found were fixed? (the bug fix rate)
Was the test effort adequate? (I do this by looking at a set of test measurements.)
In addition, I have provided information on the following:
The bug find rate
Bug density per unit
Bug composition
The bug fix rate
Most of these metrics are simple sums of events. Cumulative results like these should be accumulated over time and examined carefully for trends. I use these cumulative trends to show the big picture and predict the answers to other questions that need to be answered, such as:
Are we on schedule?
Have we tested it enough?
There are many other questions that you can answer using these metrics as well. In the meantime, would you hire a tester who could not or would not measure the test effort?
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