Verification VS Validation Activities In Product Development Processes

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Verification and validation are parts of a testing system in product development. Verification is an early step that involves verifying that a product meets your set requirements. It puts the product through tests designed specifically to answer the question: “does it do what I designed it to do?” Validation is another testing phase. However, it occurs near the end of a testing cycle. It answers the question: “why does it do what I designed it to do?” Both processes are vital to product development. As a product development manager, it is important that you understand what separates the two terms to make sound business decisions. Here are some of the differences between verification vs. validation.

Verification Ensures Products Meet Expectations

Products go through numerous testing phases before they are released on the market. Verification is one of the earlier steps in testing. This process involves running your product through various checklists to see if it is meeting your set expectations. Typically, you will have written down specific guidelines for how you want your final product to look. Verification simply involves making sure that your product is matching up with those guidelines. As a result, it can be done in the middle of the development process or near the end. This is what sets it apart from validation.

Validation Tests Validity Of The Final Product

Validation is usually the last step in development testing or app testing. It takes your finished product and validates its functions. This is done by putting it through systems, functionality and regression testing, among others. Ultimately, the main goal of validation is to check how effectively your product fills your business needs. Verification ensures that your product is being developed correctly. Validation makes sure it is being developed effectively. These two goals are a defining element in the differences of verification vs validation.

Verification Is Objective

The entire verification process is comprised of objective tasks. The process starts with a quick review of the requirements. Next, a review of all design documents is initiated, including the HLC and LLD. A code review is completed, along with verification of user manuals. Then, the process is complete. All of these steps involve static tasks that do not require any extra judgment. In this regard, it is completely objective. Validation is almost entirely opposite, which is a significant difference between verification vs validation.

Validation Is Subjective

Validation is almost entirely subjective. It does however, contain several objective tasks. Validation requires you to organize your test requirement documents and analyze the results, just as you would organize your business shelving. It tests for boundary levels, stress and functionality, as well as integrity issues in case of failure. All of these tests lead into the most important phase in validation: evaluating product effectiveness. In validating your product, you must consider all of the data. Ultimately, your goal is to determine whether or not your product is good enough for customers to want it. The decisions you make in this situation are going to be completely subjective. This is in stark contrast to verification’s objectivity, which is what differentiates the two terms.

In Agile Development

Ideally, when using an Agile development process, both verification and validation processes will occur. It is best if these verification and validation activities happen simultaneously, or as close to it as possible. As you probably already know, it is necessary to consistently update and refine User Stories. This means that V&V processes are necessary each and every time you refine these stories in order to have continual feedback. This is important to remember if your use Agile development processes.

Verification and validation are critical terms in product development to help prevent you from ever having to worry about losing business. Both are processes that test a product before release. However, they have major differences in execution. Verification occurs anywhere from the middle to the end of development. Its main goal is to ensure that your product is meeting set expectations. In contrast, validation occurs at the end of development. It checks to make sure your product is good enough for the market. Understanding the differences between the two terms in crucial. Reading through this post will help you understand the differences of verification vs validation and enable you to make better decisions during product development.

Photo from http://www.carlstargroup.com/design-dev/product-development

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