Test Tool Acquisition

Test tool acquisition represents the second phase of the ATLM. This phase guides the test engineer through the entire test tool evaluation and selection process, starting with confirmation of management support. Since a tool should support most of the organizations' testing requirements, whenever feasible the test engineer will need to review the system's engineering environment and other organizational needs and come up with a list of tool evaluation criteria. A review of the different types of tools available to support aspects of the entire testing lifecycle is provided in a part of the ATLM, enabling the reader to make an informed decision with regard to the types of tests to be performed on a particular project. The test engineer then needs to define an evaluation domain to pilot the test tool. Finally, after all those steps have been completed, the test engineer can make vendor contact to bring in the selected tool(s). Test personnel then evaluate the tool, based on sample criteria provided.