This reduces the work with test bed creation, something your managers maybe have in mind when trying to jump intergation testing altogether. 1 Other comments on this thread are compelling enough, but I'd like to take a different tack, namely one of risk management. As pointed out elsewhere, the expectation is that most everything works. This sound a lot like verification testing. Again, this is at the tail end of the development cycle.
ANY problems found here are high risk due to the impending closure of the development schedule.
This schedule will be impacted by problems which cannot be deferred to the next incremental cycle. Of course, this all rests on a high regard for meeting delivery dates. Samuel T. Harris, Senior Engineer Hughes Training, Inc. - Houston Operations 2224 Bay Area Blvd.