An Alternative Approach to Test Effort Estimation Based on Use Cases

Including test activity in the software’s lifecycle requires it to be planned, so that the time and resources to be spent can be estimated. However, estimating test effort is still an unexplored process. This work describes a method to get test activity effort, based on the information of software use cases. The method was applied in testing of systems from the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service and results showed that the estimates' error was attractive relative to other methods evaluated, with the advantage of including an important refinement that distinguishes normal scenarios of a use case from exceptional ones.