Software Verification and Validation Plan (SVVP) Template

Items that are intended to stay in as part of your document are in bold; explanatory comments are in italic text. Plain text is used where you might insert wording about your project.

This document is an annotated outline for a Software Verification and Validation Plan, adapted from the IEEE Standard for Software Verification and Validation Plans (Standard 1012), and the IEEE Guide for Software Verification and Validation Plans (Guide 1059).

Tailor as appropriate. Where you decide to omit a section, you might keep the header, but insert a comment saying why you omit the element (e.g., This section is not applicable to the plan.)

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

(Agency) (Project) Software Verification and Validation Plan

Version: (n)
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Date: (mm/dd/yyyy)
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Software Verification and Validation Plan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. PURPOSE

2. REFERENCED DOCUMENTS

3. DEFINITIONS

4. VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OVERVIEW 4.1 Organization 4.2 Master Schedule 4.3 Resource Summary 4.4 Responsibilities 4.5 Tools, Techniques, and Methodologies

5 5 6 6 7 7

5. LIFECYCLE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION 5.1 Management of V&V 5.2 Concept Phase 5.3 Requirements Phase 5.4 Design Phase 5.5 Implementation Phase 5.6 Test Phase 5.7 Installation and Checkout Phase 5.8 Operation and Maintenance Phase

7 7 8 9 9 10 11 11 12

6. Reporting

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED)

7. Administrative Procedures 7.1 Anomaly Reporting and Resolution 7.2 Task Iteration Policy 7.3 Deviation Policy 7.4 Control Procedures 7.5 Standards, Practices, and Conventions 13

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13 13 14 14

8. Plan Approvals

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

1. PURPOSE
(NOTE 1: THE SOFTWARE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION PLAN GUIDELINES WERE DERIVED AND DEVELOPED FROM IEEE S TANDARD FOR SOFTWARE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION (STANDARD 1012) AND THE IEEE GUIDE FOR SOFTWARE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION PLANS (GUIDE 1059)). (Note 2: The ordering of Software Verification and Validation Plan (SVVP) elements is not meant to imply that the sections or subsections must be developed or presented in that order. The order of presentation is intended for ease of use, not as a guide to preparing the various elements of the Software Verification and Validation Plan. If some or all of the content of a section is in another document, then a reference to that material may be listed in place of the corresponding content.)

(The Purpose section of the Software Verification and Validation Plan defines the purpose, scope, and goals of the plan. The software project must be identified and the specific software product items, covered by the plan, must be identified. The specific goals of the verification and validation effort must be specified. The SVVP purpose section provides the highest level description of verification and validation efforts. The following topics must be addressed: Project identification, Plan goals, Summary of verification and validation efforts, Responsibilities conveyed with the plan, Software to be verified and validated, Identification of waivers and changes to organization standards, and SVVP assumptions.)

Software verification and validation (V&V) is a disciplined approach to assessing software products throughout the software development life cycle. Verification and validation strives to ensure that quality is built into the software and that the software satisfies business functional requirements. Software verification and validation employs review, analysis, and testing techniques to determine whether a software product and its intermediate deliverables comply with requirements. These requirements include both business functional capabilities and quality attributes.
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Software Verification and Validation Plan

The objectives of the V&V effort are to find defects and to determine if required functions and attributes are built into the software system. V&V activities are designed to support: 1. Verification that the products of each software life cycle phase: Comply with previous life cycle phase requirements and products for correctness, completeness, consistency, and accuracy, Satisfy the standards, policies, practices, procedures, and conventions of the phase, and Establish the proper basis for initiating the next life cycle phase.

2. Validate that the completed end product complies with established software and system requirements.

Verification and validation provide management with insights into the state of the project and the software products, allowing for timely change in the products or in the software development life cycle approach.

(Verification and validation effort is typically applied in parallel with software development and support activities. Verification and validation planning may be broken down into the following steps: Identify the V&V scope, Establish specific objectives from the general project scope, Analyze the project input prior to selecting V&V tools and techniques, Select tools and techniques, and Develop the Software Verification and Validation Plan (SVVP)).

2. REFERENCE DOCUMENTS
(This section shall identify the binding compliance documents, documents referenced in the plan, and any supporting documents required to implement, or supplement, the SVVP. Ensure that the reference document list is consistent with other project documentation. Ensure that all documents listed in the plan are referenced. Specify documents completely
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Software Verification and Validation Plan including the version and date reference.)

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

3. Definitions
(The definition section provides a reference to the definition of all terms required to properly interpret the SVVP. This section also notes acronyms and notations used in the plan. Include only terms necessary for understanding the SVVP. Refer to other project documentation for a comprehensive list of project definitions (e.g., Software Project Management Plan, Software Quality Assurance Plan). For SVVP purposes, the following definitions apply:) SVVP Software Verification and Validation Plan. Validation The process of evaluating software at the end of the software development process to ensure compliance to software requirements. Verification The process of determining whether or not products of a given phase of the software development process fulfill the requirements established during the previous phase. V&V Verification and validation.

4. VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OVERVIEW

(Describe the organization, schedule, resources, responsibilities, tools, techniques, and methodologies to be deployed in order to perform the verification and validation activities.)

4.1 Organization
(Define the relationship of verification and validation to other efforts such as development, project management, quality assurance, and configuration management. Define the lines of communication within the verification and validation effort, the authority for resolving issues, and the authority for approving verification and validation deliverables.)

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Software Verification and Validation Plan (The specific organization structure of the V&V effort will depend on the nature of the system under development, the developing organizations, and any contractual arrangements.)

4.2 Master Schedule

(The master schedule summarizes the various verification and validation tasks and their relationship to the overall project.) (Describe the project life cycle and project milestones including completion dates. Summarize the schedule of verification and validation tasks and how verification and validation results provide feedback to the development process to support overall project management functions.) (The objective of this section is to define an orderly flow of material between project activities and verification and validation tasks. Use reference to PERT, CPM, and Gantt Charts to define the relationship of activities.) (If the life cycle used in the SVVP differs from the life cycle model defined in IEEE Standard 1012, this section must show how all requirements of the Standard will be satisfied. The summary of tasks may be in narrative, tabular, or graphic form.)

4.3 Resource Summary

(This section summarizes the resources needed to perform verification and validation tasks, including staffing, facilities, tools, finances, and special procedural requirements such as security, access rights, and documentation control. In this section: Use graphs and tables to present resource utilization, Include equipment and laboratory resources required, Summarize the purpose and cost of hardware and software tools to be employed, and Take all resources into account and allow for additional time and money to cope with contingencies.)
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Software Verification and Validation Plan

4.4 Responsibilities
(Identify the organization responsible for performing verification and validation tasks. There are two levels of responsibility general responsibilities assigned to different organizations and specific responsibilities for the V&V tasks to be performed should be assigned to individuals. General responsibilities should be supplemented with specific responsibility for each task in the verification and validation plan.)

4.5 Tools, Techniques, and Methodology

(Identify the special software tools, techniques, and methodologies to be employed by the verification and validation team. The purpose of each should be defined and plans for the acquisition, training, support, and qualification of each shall be described in this section. This section may be in narrative or graphic format. A separate tool plan may be developed for software tool acquisition, development, or modification. In this case, a separate Tool Plan section may be added to the plan.)

5. LIFECYCLE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION

(This section of the SVVP provides the detailed plan for the verification and validation tasks throughout the project life cycle. Please refer to IEEE Standard 1012 and IEEE Guide 1059 for detailed descriptions of lifecycle verification and validation activities.)

5.1 Management of V & V

This section shall address the following general topics: Verification and validation tasks, Methods and criteria, Inputs and outputs, Schedule, Resources,
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Software Verification and Validation Plan Risks and assumptions, and Roles and responsibilities.

(In addition, all sub-sections of this major heading (5) must specifically address all seven of the topics noted above.) (For all software projects, the Management of Verification and Validation section must include the following minimum tasks: Software Verification and Validation Plan Generation, Baseline Change Assessment, Management Review of V&V, and Review Support.)

(Initiate the Software Verification and Validation Plan during the Concept phase of the project life cycle. However, verification and validation planning may be dependent on things outside of your control. Therefore, V&V planning may be most effectively performed in conjunction with the overall software development planning effort. The SVVP is often best developed incrementally.) (Evaluate proposed software changes for effects on previously completed V&V tasks. The request for baseline change assessment should be formally documented in a change proposal.) (Conduct periodic reviews of V&V efforts, technical accomplishments, resource utilization, future planning, and risk management. Management review comprises all of the general responsibilities of management for monitoring, controlling, reporting, and managing the plan.) (Identify key review support milestones. Correlate V&V task results to support project management and technical reviews.)

5.2 Concept Phase

(This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. Evaluate concept documentation to determine if the proposed project concept satisfies user needs and project objectives. Identify major constraints of interfacing systems and limitations of the proposed approach. Assess the criticality of each software item.) (The concept phase establishes the reason for the system. Evaluation in the
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Software Verification and Validation Plan concept phase should establish that the objectives of the system define the user needs to be addressed and the technical and business advantages to be expected.)

5.3 Requirements Phase

(The requirements phase is when the functional and technical capabilities of the software product are defined and documented. The product from the requirements phase (Software Requirements Specification) should accurately state the software mission and what the software is intended to do. Requirements must be traceable to user needs and the system concept.) (This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. For critical software, Requirements Phase Verification and Validation must include the following tasks:

Software requirements traceability analysis, (Trace SRS requirements to system requirements in concept documentation. Analyze identified relationships for correctness, consistency, completeness, and accuracy. Do the requirements completely satisfy the capabilities specified in the concept document?) Software requirements evaluation, (Evaluate SRS requirements for correctness, consistency, completeness, accuracy, readability, and testability. Assess the technical merits of the requirements.) Software requirements interface analysis, (Evaluate the SRS with hardware, user, operator, and software interface requirements documentation for correctness, consistency, completeness, accuracy, and readability Ensure that all external interfaces to the software and internal interfaces between software functions are complete and correctly specified.) and Test plan analysis for - System test, and - Acceptance test.)

5.4 Design Phase

(The design phase in the software life cycle involves the designs for architecture, software components, interfaces, and data creation, documentation, and verification. Design must trace back to requirements.)
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Software Verification and Validation Plan (This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. For critical software, design phase V&V will include the following tasks:

Software design traceability analysis (Trace design documentation to requirements. Analyze identified relationships for correctness, consistency, completeness, and accuracy.), Software design evaluation (Evaluate design for correctness, consistency, completeness, accuracy, readability, and testability. Assess the technical merits of the requirements and compliance to organization standards.), Software design interface analysis, (Evaluate design with hardware, operator, and software interface requirements documentation for correctness, consistency, completeness, accuracy, and readability At a minimum, analyze data elements at each interface.) and Test design generation Component test plan, and Integration test plan.)

5.5 Implementation Phase

(This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. Implementation phase V&V must include the following tasks:

Source code traceability analysis (Trace source code to design specification and assess correctness, consistency, completeness, and accuracy.), Source code evaluation (evaluate source code for correctness, consistency, completeness, accuracy, and testability. Assess code quality and compliance to organization standards.), Source code interface evaluation (Evaluate source code with hardware, operator, and design documentation for correctness, consistency, completeness, and accuracy.), Source code documentation evaluation (Evaluate draft code-related documents with source code to ensure completeness, correctness, and consistency.), Test case generation for:
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Software Verification and Validation Plan

Component test Integration test System test and Acceptance test,

Test procedure generation for: - Component test - Integration test and - System test, Component test execution.)

5.6 Test Phase

(This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. The following tasks must be included in this section:

Acceptance test procedure generation, (Develop test procedures for acceptance test) and Test execution - Integration test, - System test, and - Acceptance test.)

5.7 Installation and Checkout Phase

(This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. The following verification and validation tasks must be included in this section:

Installation configuration audit, (Audit installation package to determine that all software products required to correctly install and operate the system are present and correct), and Final V&V report generation, (Summarize all V&V activities and results including the status and disposition of anomalies in the V&V final report).)

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

5.8 Operation and Maintenance Phase

(This section of the plan shall address the seven topics identified in section 5.1 of this document. Any modifications, enhancements, or additions to software during this phase shall be treated as development activity and shall be verified and validated. If the original software was verified and validated under this standard, the standard must continue to be followed in the Operations and Maintenance phase. The minimum V&V tasks to include: - Software verification and validation plan revision, - Anomaly Evaluation, - Proposed change assessment, and - Phase task iteration.) (The operation and maintenance phase is the period of time in the software life cycle during which the software product is employed in an operational environment, monitored for satisfactory performance, and modified to correct problems or respond to changing requirements. Operation and maintenance may not be a phase but a sequence of repetitions or subsets of the software development life cycle.)

6. Reporting
(This section describes how the results of implementing the SVVP will be documented. Verification and validation reporting will occur throughout the software life cycle. Specify the content, format, and timing of all verification and validation reports. The required V&V reports include: Anomaly reports, Task reporting, Phase summary reports, and Final report.)

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Software Verification and Validation Plan

7. Administrative Procedures
(This section should identify any existing administrative procedures that are to be implemented as part of the SVVP. Verification and validation efforts consist of both management and technical tasks. At least three audiences should be identified for the V&V information personnel performing the V&V tasks, personnel performing development tasks, and management.)

7.1 Anomaly Reporting and Resolution

(Identify the method of reporting and resolving anomalies including the criteria for reporting an anomaly, anomaly report distribution, and the authority and time line for resolving anomalies. This section should have the following sub-sections: Methods and criteria for reporting, Report distribution, Methods and criteria for anomaly resolution, Anomaly criticality scheme, Resolution timing.)

7.2 Task Iteration Policy

(Describe the criteria used to determine when V&V tasks must be re-performed because input has changed. These criteria include assessments of change, criticality, cost, schedule, and effects on product quality.)

7.3 Deviation Policy

(Describe the procedures and forms used to request a deviation from the SVVP. The information required for deviation must include task identification, deviation rationale, and effect on software quality. Authority for approving deviations from
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Software Verification and Validation Plan the plan must also be identified.)

7.4 Control Procedures

(Identify all control procedures applied to the verification and validation effort. At a minimum, control procedures should be identified for: Configuration management, Archive and retrieval, Security, and Access control.)

7.5 Standards, Practices, and Conventions

(This section identifies the standards, practices, and conventions that govern the performance of verification and validation tasks. Include IEEE, IRMC, and organizational standards, policies, procedures, and guidelines.)

8. Plan Approvals
(Identify the plan approvers. List the name, signature and date of plan approval.)

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