As a test manager you??™ll want to review
all critical documents as part of an overall validation and verification (quality control) strategy for the
project. This is shown in the test plan.5
1.8.5 Baselines
All tests derive from some baseline, usually a specification. Even a piece of code or some manual may
be a part of a suitable baseline; anything will do, providing the following rules are adhered to. The
baseline must:
1. Be changeable (because the world changes) and any changes to it must be controlled.
2. Only be interpretable in one way.
3. Contain enough information to be useful. It need not be complete (things seldom are). For a
???complete??? baseline for a system you would need to have the system itself. By useful I mean that
it can be transformed into something else. Thus a requirements specification can be transformed
into a design specification, and a system test specification, and even a user manual.
4. Be humanly-visible. If the baseline involves (say) astrophysical movement then this must be
defined in some terms (possibly involving telescopes, satellites, or Foucault??™s pendulum) that
involve some humanly-observable event.
5. Be stable. ???I think it should do this??? isn??™t a baseline. ???User X believed the system should do this??? is
a baseline if it??™s written and agreed by stakeholders.
If the relationship between a test and its baseline cannot be determined, the test is meaningless.
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