ESPRET: A tool for execution time estimation of manual test cases

Abstract

Manual testing is still a predominant and an important approach for validation of computer systems, particularly in certain domains such as safety-critical systems. Knowing the execution time of test cases is important to perform test scheduling, prioritization and progress monitoring. In this work, we present, apply and evaluate ESPRET (EStimation and PRediction of Execution Time) as our tool for estimating and predicting the execution time of manual test cases based on their test specifications. Our approach works by extracting timing information for various steps in manual test specification. This information is then used to estimate the maximum time for test steps that have not previously been executed, but for which textual specifications exist. As part of our approach, natural language parsing of the specifications is performed to identify word combinations to check whether existing timing information on various test steps is already available or not. Since executing test cases on the several machines may take different time, we predict the actual execution time for test cases by a set of regression models. Finally, an empirical evaluation of the approach and tool has been performed on a railway use case at Bombardier Transportation (BT) in Sweden.