An Expert System for Test Failure Root Cause Discovery

This paper presents a prototype of an expert system to assist in the discovery and analysis of test failure root cause. The prototype application is most useful in a software development scenario where dedicated software test engineers are employed for testing activities, and these test engineers do not have an intimate knowledge of the internal design and implementation of the software under test. The expert system acts as a subject matter expert resource tool for the tester responsible for determining the root cause of test failures. Advantages of this expert system include ease of use by new testers unfamiliar with the software under test, root cause determination in a consistent manner, documentation of the failure analysis, and potential for automating portions of the root cause discovery.