What is Compliance Testing (Conformance testing)?

Definition – What is Compliance Testing?

“Compliance testing” also known as Conformance testing is non-functional. testing technique which is done to validate, whether the system developed meets the organization’s prescribed standards or not.

There is a separate category of testing known as “Non-Functional Testing”.

Nonfunctional testing, as the name suggests, focuses on the nonfunctional features of the software.  These nonfunctional features (which are not limited to) can include the following points:

• Load testing
• Stress Testing
• Volume Testing
• Compliance testing
• Operations Testing
• Documentation Testing

As of now, I am trying to throw some light on the 4^th point which is Compliance Testing.

Recommended Reading=> Compliance testing

This is a kind of audit that is done on the system to check if all the specified standards are met or not. To ensure that the compliances are met, sometimes a board of regulators and compliance expert people are established in every organization. This board checks whether the development teams are meeting the standards of the organization or not.

The teams analyze to check that the standards are properly enforced and implemented. The regulatory board also works simultaneously to improve the standards, which will, in turn, lead to better quality.

Compliance testing is also known as Conformance testing. The standards normally used by the IT industry, are defined by large organizations like IEEE (International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) or W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), etc.

It can also be carried out by an independent/third-party company that specializes in this type of testing and service.

Objectives

Objectives of compliance testing include:

• Determining that the development and maintenance process meets the prescribed methodology.
• Ensures that the deliverables of each phase of the development meet the standards, procedures, and guidelines.
• Evaluate the documentation of the project to check for completeness and reasonableness

When to use Compliance Testing

It is solely the management’s call. If they want, they have to enforce sufficient tests to validate the degree of compliance to the methodology and identify the violators. But it may be possible that lack of compliance is due to NOT understanding the methodology or they are misunderstood.

Management should ensure that the teams have a proper and clear understanding of the standards, procedures, and methodology. They can arrange proper training for the team if needed.

It may be possible that the standards are not published properly or maybe that the standards themselves are of poor quality. In such a situation, efforts should be made either to rectify it or to adopt a new methodology.

It is important that the compliance check should be made right from the inception of the project rather than at a later stage because it would be difficult to correct the application when the requirement itself is not adequately documented.

How to do a compliance check

Doing a Compliance check is quite straightforward. A set of standards and procedures are developed and documented for each phase of the development lifecycle.

Deliverables of each phase need to be compared against the standards and find out the gaps. This can be done by the team through the inspection process, but I would recommend an independent team to do it.

After the end of the inspection process, the author of each phase should be given a list of non-compliant areas that need to be corrected. The inspection process should again be done after the action items are worked upon, to make sure that the non-conformance items are validated and closed.

Conclusion

Compliance testing is performed to ensure the compliance of the deliverables of each phase of the development lifecycle. These standards should be well understood and documented by the management. If required training and sessions should be arranged for the team.

Compliance testing is done through the inspection process and the outcome of the review process should be well documented.