Improving Testing Process to Maximize Validation Efficiency on Advanced Telecommunications Laboratory: An Experience Report

Testing the system embedded in mobile hardware is an important instrument in guaranteeing product quality. Besides, a mobile device needs approval from several involved parts, such as national and international telecommunications regulator agencies and telephone mobile network operators in the countries where they will be marketed. Usually, the initial phase of software testing on mobile devices is done using highly specialized equipment for simulation of cellular networks focused on the communication protocols exchanged between mobile networks and the devices. In order to perform this validation, many mobile device manufacturers have a dedicated team for this purpose. ATLAS is one of these teams and plays this role for a large multinational mobile device manufacturer, being responsible for supporting the software development team through the execution of test cases required by the mobile network operators. In this experience report, we describe and rank which problems were faced by the a team during its early stage and how the team was able to achieve satisfactory levels of quality and minimize test inconsistencies and error through the implementation of organizational actions and effective management. At last, we present the lessons learned that might be used by similar teams to cope with the most frequent bottlenecks.