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The ROI of Testing In today's competitive business environment, corporations need and demand a good return on investment (ROI) for everything they do-and testing is no exception. Although executive managers are requesting meaningful metrics more often than ever, many test managers are struggling to justify the cost versus benefit of their departments' work. Often these test managers are unsure how to calculate investment costs versus dollars saved when using solid QA and testing methodologies. Test managers need the business tools and techniques to provide this business critical information, not only to satisfy upper management but also to ensure their departments are indeed making a positive contribution. Shaun Bradshaw demonstrates the tangible benefits of testing on the software development lifecycle by defining ROI in the context of software testing and defect prevention.
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Shaun Bradshaw, Questcon Technologies, A Division of Howard Systems Intl.
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Testing Disasters and Turnarounds It's good to learn from your own mistakes, but even better to learn from the mistakes of others. Randy Rice presents case studies of testing projects that have gone horribly wrong and reveals the one characteristic they all have in common. Although many of these projects ultimately ended in failure, Randy presents examples where mid-course corrective actions were very successful. Learn important lessons that address test team organization, test environment design, working with software developers, test outsourcing, test tool integration, team building, and the importance of strong leadership to the success of your testing. Find out how to become a change agent and what you need to do in order to turn around testing projects that are headed toward disaster. Avoid the mistakes of others and focus your efforts in leading your test team to get the best possible results.
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Randy Rice, Rice Consulting Services Inc
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The Rise of the Customer Champions The customer champion model is a new way for test teams to systematically collect, organize, and act on customer feedback. This model helps test teams think more strategically about their overall customer connection approach, in addition to growing the test discipline in the long term. Mike Tholfsen describes how the Office OneNote test team employed innovative customer connection techniques to improve product quality and customer satisfaction during the Microsoft Office 2007 release. Mike will also talk about how the Office "14" development team brought together test customer champions across forty client, server, service, and shared teams to ensure there is a unified Office voice when gathering user feedback and customer data.
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Michael Tholfsen, Microsoft Corporation
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The Angels and Devils of Software Testing It's never been easier to fool your manager into thinking you're doing a great job testing! Does that sound tempting? Some would rather spend time playing Spider Solitaire, Foosball, or watching online videos of cats begging for cheeseburgers instead of doing their testing work. Jonathan Kohl and Michael Bolton discuss the types of test fakery that are out there-and that you need to avoid. These temptations include banishing critical thinking, using misleading test case metrics, generating impressive looking but useless test documentation, maintaining obsolete tests (so we have something to count and display), engaging in methodology doublespeak, tinkering endlessly with expensive test automation tools, and taking credit for a great product that would have been great even if no one had tested it.
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Michael Bolton, DevelopSense
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Transforming Your Test Culture: One Step at a Time Whether we develop software-based systems to create invoices, solve difficult physics problems, diagnose heart disease, or launch rockets, we've learned that nothing stays the same very long and software defects are inevitable. However, one thing has remained constant—the role and value of testing has been misunderstood by many in senior management. A Lockheed Martin Fellow since 2005, Tom Wissink describes steps undertaken at Lockheed Martin to change this culture of misunderstanding into a culture of appreciation, satisfaction, and excitement. Tom's experience has convinced him that this change is not just theoretical but both possible and rewarding. In a few organizations, both large and small, this has resulted in dramatic changes including greater tester satisfaction, increased company profits, and improved software quality often delivered on time and within budget.
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Thomas Wissink, LM IS&S
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Toot Your Own Horn: Hyper-visibility in Software Testing Too often software projects are provided insufficient resources for testing. Perhaps, the project is under-funded, and testing is the first thing to get cut. Maybe the schedule is tight, and testing scope is reduced to allow for more developers. Barrett Nuzum believes the underlying problem is that the typical test team only makes itself known-and valued-when quality is poor and defects are obvious. It doesn't have to be that way! Barrett reviews ways to make your team hyper-visible to your business stakeholders and the entire development team-large, visible charts for test teams metrics; aggregation of existing test results into development updates; fun and extreme feedback devices for everyone to see and enjoy; and more. Discover innovative ways of "tooting your own horn" to make the service and value of testing and QA impossible to ignore.
- Why making a business case for testing is more important today
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Barrett Nuzum, Valtech Technologies
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Beyond the Rock and the Hard Place One stakeholder says "Zig." The other says "Zag." No compromise is in sight, and the project deadline looms nearer. The rock and the hard place-welcome to the test manager’s world! How do you deal with an overly emotional stakeholder or a developer who is ignoring your requests? Few of us like conflict, but our ability to navigate conflict goes a long way toward determining how successfully we can deliver quality projects. Andy Kaufman introduces you to "conflict handling modes" that describe different approaches you can take to deal with conflict. Understanding these different modes can help you get beyond your typical responses to conflict to those that can be more effective. Join Andy as he discusses real-world project conflicts, and learn practical ideas to improve your ability to manage them.
- Different conflict handling modes you can use to manage issues
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Andy Kaufman, Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development
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The Top Ten Signs You Need to Improve Your Testing Process Does this sound familiar? Patch #94 was just released for the application you shipped last month; your customers refuse to upgrade to the latest version until someone else tries it first; your project manager casually asks if the application was tested on Windows 98 because that's what your biggest customer uses. Robert Watkins discusses these and other signs of test process breakdowns. He then suggests ways to improve the testing process by making sure the testing activities are in line with the needs of all stakeholders (customers, business owners, support staff, developers, and testers). Find new ways to establish appropriate quality gates that everyone honors, enlist the best champion for your improvement efforts, and communicate the right information to the right people at the right time.
- Improvements to mitigate or eliminate test process breakdowns
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Robert Watkins, Metavante
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Selecting Mischief Makers: Vital Interviewing Skills Much of testing is tedious-the focus on details, the repetitive execution of the same code, the detailed paperwork, the seemingly endless technical discussions, and the complex data analysis. All good testers have the skills and aptitude necessary to deal with these activities. However, great testers have one other characteristic-they are mischievous. As a hiring manager, detecting mischievous testers is a challenge you should pursue to build the best testing staff. How do you uncover a candidate's mischievous traits during the selection process? Résumés do not help, and phone interviews or email conversations are too easily misunderstood. The best chance you have for detecting mischief is during the interview. Andy explores the ways he identifies the clever people who make great testers and shares techniques that you can easily add to your interview process to find the best people for your team.
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Andy Bozman, Orthodyne Electronics
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A "Framework for Test" for Repeatable Success Do you have defined and documented processes that describe all the activities and deliverables for testing? Do you have a documented road map for repeating test project successes? The test group at Kaiser found themselves overwhelmed with too many projects, understaffed on most projects, lacking repeatable procedures, and without testing tools. Randy Slade describes how they identified the needed test processes and tools, set priorities, developed new procedures, and implemented them. Their "Framework for Testing" has become the blueprint for all testing activities. Its flexibility makes it applicable to software projects of all types and sizes. It guides testers and managers from A to Z in performing their duties by describing the "what, when, how, and why" of all testing activities and deliverables.
- Five phases of a software testing life-cycle
- How to develop, pilot, and evaluate new processes
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Randy Slade, Kaiser Permanente
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