When To Get Serious About Testing

Some years back, I taught a course on software configuration management. In that course, we discussed the benefits and drawbacks to integrating change control within the software development process considering that the software is being actively developed or matured during that process. A concept that I presented in the course was to apply only the level of control that was appropriate for the phase or maturity the project/software had reached.

This same concept is applicable when deciding how to establish the most useful balance between providing early feedback and performing “serious” testing.

Release Criteria – What is your ‘Quality Bar’?

In a previous article, I discussed managing risk with quality gates (“None Shall Pass…unless? Managing Risk with Quality Gates”). Such gates and their expectations facilitate tracing issue root cause and examining which preventative measures failed or need to be enhanced so as to continue to lower costs associated with poor quality.

But that last gate is there to enforce a level of standard, or ‘quality bar’, for what is ultimately to be published, deployed, or otherwise seen outside of the project team itself.  To guard that gate, we need “release criteria”.

IT Consulting – Sales Experience Required?

Sales experience needed in an IT consulting role?

OK, first answer these questions…

Who are you?
What do you do?
What do you love?

Then, consider…

None Shall Pass…unless? Managing Risk with Quality Gates

A common element to a test strategy or master test plan is to include a description of how the project will mature the software system towards release, and how the project team can be sure that progress is on track and of quality.  One aspect of that description is to set expectations around entry/exit criteria and/or suspension/resumption conditions.

It’s Raid Night! Gamification for Software Test Teams?

On March 26, 2012, I presented “It’s Raid Night! Gamification for Software Test Teams?” to VANQ.org, the Vancouver Software Quality Assurance User Group and I wanted to share that material with you.

People, processes and technology are the pillars of any company, but without the team nothing gets done.  Motivate your people, keep them engaged, and successful projects can happen.

Team building exercises, public and private recognitions; these are not new and are expected – at least on an intermittent, perhaps annual basis.  But, then the impact of these activities may be as (in)substantial as bringing in a trainer for a day to lecture from a podium on a given topic.  With no practical incorporation into the fabric of the team, little value is added for the organization and its people.

So, what can be done in the workplace, on the project, every day…?  Especially with limited budget, no time, and/or overworked, sceptical team members.

The goals of gamification are to achieve higher levels of engagement, change behaviours and stimulate innovation by increasing the feelings of accomplishment, fun, and cooperation through a continuous feedback/rewards system.

In this presentation, we discussed and explored as a group how the ideas behind gamification could be applied to creating high performance software test teams.

Read the full article…

Test Management: Leading Your Team To Success (Course Extract)

Having been focused on establishing and growing the Vancouver delivery center of www.PQA.ca this year, I have not been so involved in public presentations or offering training as in recent years. 

Choosing this alternative medium to share with a wider community, I have extracted a small deck of slides from my course “Test Management: Leading Your Team To Success” and linked it below.  Hope you enjoy.

View the course extract…

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Scalable V-Model: An Illustrative Tool for Crafting a Test Approach

PQA recommends a testing approach that is risk-driven, leverages agile principles, encourages early validation and verification activities, reports progress with practical metrics, and is controlled through hand-offs and acceptance criteria overlaid on the development cycle via a scalable “V-model” (whether Agile, Iterative or Waterfall).

We apply and tailor our test approaches to match our customers’ development and testing life-cycles, always keeping their project constraints and business goals in mind.