ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119

About ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119

What is ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 – Software Testing

ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 family of Standards

The ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 family of Standards

The purpose of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 series is to define an internationally agreed set of standards for software testing, that can be used by an organisation when managing or performing any form of software testing.

It is formed of five parts:

  • Part 1 – Concepts and definitions
  • Part 2 – Test processes
  • Part 3 – Test documentation
  • Part 4 – Test techniques
  • Part 5 – Keyword driven testing

These standards consolidate and harmonise and update the following existing standards:

  • IEEE 829 Test Documentation
  • IEEE 1008 Unit Testing
  • BS 7925-1 Vocabulary of Terms in Software Testing
  • BS 7925-2 Software Component Testing Standard

Guidance on ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 – Work In Progress

At the Delhi Plenary of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 (in May 2018) work was approved on a number of additional parts, as Technical reports, to provide specific Guidelines for the use of ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119:

  • Part 6 – Agile projects
  • Part 7 – Testing of software for automotive systems
  • Part 8 – Model-based testing
  • Part 9 – Games testing
  • Part 10 – Performance testing
  • Part 11 – Testing of AI-based systems
  • Part 12
  • Part 13 – Testing of biometric systems

In addition, work is underway on the following:

  • Part 14 – Data migration
  • Part 15 – Static Analysis

Is There Anything Else?

To accompany and support the five parts of ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119, the following additional Standards are coordinated by the same committee:

The Committees Behind The Standards

Who or What is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG26

Joint Technical Committee (JTC)  1 – Information Technology is a technical committee of both the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), formed in 1987 to avoid duplication of effort in standards development by both organizations, and to ensure interoperability of standards related to Information technology created by technical committees of either organization.

Subcommittee (SC) 7 – Software and Systems Engineering has the “mission” of standardization of processes, supporting tools and supporting technologies for the engineering of software products and systems.

Participation in Working Group (WG) 26 – Software Testing is open to anyone in the world via their National Standards Body.

Who or What is BSI IST/15/-/26

The National Standards Body for the United Kingdom is BSI (aka the British Standards Institution)… it has National committees supporting the International level working groups.

  • IST/15 is the UK mirror panel for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7
  • IST/15/-/26 is the UK mirror panel for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG26

With effect from November 2016, I am the Chairman of IST/15/-/26.

See Also

For other posts relating to WG26 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 see the WG26 category.