One Step at a Time… A Testing Center Story…
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bus.” “The grass is always greener on the other side”.Whether you agree with the origins of the saying, the meaning is clear. Something worth having is going to take you some time to get. Your first...
Test Strategies from Around the World
This webinar will give attendees an overview of the significant test strategies in use by testers in various industries and business domains around the world. We’ll examine: analytical strategies (where testers analyze requirements or risks to identify the test conditions to cover); model-based strategies (where testers develop a model of the environment in which the system exists, the inputs and conditions to which the system is subjected, and how the system should behave); methodical strategies (where testers use a predetermined set of test conditions, such as a quality standard or set of heuristics); process-compliant strategies (where testers follow a set of processes defined by others, such as Agile testing); reactive strategies (where testers react to the actual system under test rather than trying to pre-plan the testing); and, other strategies in common use.
Cast Your Eyes Afield: Hiring Testers From Outside The IT Industry
When it comes time for you to write a job ad to fill a lower rung position in your quality assurance department, you might be tempted to merely copy the same old, same old boilerplate from other job postings and put this out there: Job Requirements: Bachelor’s...
TEACHERS AND ROCK STARS: Closing The Gap Between Software Testing & Development
In every business there is a contention between those perceived as “Producers” (who make things), “Facilitators” (who help make things happen), and “Constrainers” (who help prevent things from happening). Problems occur when these...
Exploratory Testing – An Agile Approach?
Developers can help with the testing bottleneck, by executing scripts predefined by the tester. However, this does come with a risk because one test approach that is difficult to handover is the exploratory side of things. Let me explain… Since moving into agile...
You Want to Launch When? Mobile App Testing Tips for Startups
With the vast majority of mobile apps being developed by startups, it is critical for these early-stage companies to be prepared to address the challenges that apps bring to the development and quality processes. The mobile web and native apps present distinct...
Bridging the Conversational Divide Between the IT Support Center and the Testing Department
There are two types of managers, those that are happy, even eager, to work with their colleagues and those that don’t pay much attention to anyone else unless they have to. If you’re a busy software test manager— that’s probably redundant—you...
The Embedded Software Development Process
What is embedded software? Embedded software is sometimes known as firmware. Specifically, we design, code, and test software that is permanently or semi-permanently stored on the microprocessor or sometimes stored in some other nonvolatile memory location but is almost never stored on a hard drive or CD/ DVD. In colloquial terms, we say the software is “burned” onto the chip.
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.
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...