10 Critical Lessons in Test Outsourcing
In this webinar, Rex will talk about ten key lessons he has learned in his quarter-century of involvement in test outsourcing, both as a vendor and a customer.
You’re a New QA Manager! What’s next?
Congratulations! You’ve just joined a company as the new QA Manager and you’re eager to dive right in and be successful. What will be your first steps besides familiarizing yourself with the applications under test? Our recommendation is to thoroughly...
Ask the Tester: Michael Bolton
No, not the singer. No, not the guy from Office Space; and he is not related to any UN ambassador. Instead, Michael Bolton is a consulting software tester based in Toronto, Canada. After working as a programmer, trainer, and technical support manager, Michael worked...
Six Sigma Control in Software Development
What is the purpose of adding ‘Control’ to our list of tasks? One major reason lies in the tendency of processes to lapse back into previous and undesirable behaviors. Our ‘Improve’ phase options may make for better software or better software development, but it is entirely possible that the new approach hasn’t taken root with our developers. By adding some reasonable measures to control regression to the past, we can help see to it that our new approach has a chance to become institutionalized in our organizations, be they large or small or somewhere in between.
Baselining Your Testing Team
Across the software testing market, tester’s skill levels differ tremendously. Some testers have experience with regulated environments, while others have worked exclusively on startup projects. Requirements and project management maturity levels vary across projects...
Implementing Six Sigma: Improvement in Software Development
“We can Improve the Software Itself (And, possibly, the testing) Or We can Improve The Development Process.” We can improve software development in two primary ways: we can improve the software itself (and, possibly, the testing) or we can improve the development...
Dinner With A Rapid Test Manager
“The first thing I did was to learn what their day was like,” he told me. “Did the test process give them freedom to think? Or was the work of investigation obstructed by a smothering blanket of pre-planned test cases?” We were interrupted briefly by the waiter taking...
Beautiful Testing Satisfies Stakeholders
This article, contributed by STP guest editor Rex Black, is reprinted from “Beautiful Testing: Leading Professionals Reveal How They Improve Software” (O’Reilly, October 2009). The book, edited by Tim Riley and Adam Goucher, is a compilation of essays from 27...
How to Pick A Winning Test Team
Automation Demands Special Skills; Field The Best Players Possible People are at the core of any successful automated software testing program implementation, and hiring competent and qualified people with the matching skill set is critical to the success of AST....
How to Put Together A “Dream Team”
Twenty years ago, I was a contractor at Lotus Development when they ramped up a huge new database product code-named No Comment (it didn’t ship, but that’s another story). The QA manager found herself with 27 people who didn’t know one another, who had no idea of each...