The Test Maturity Model integration® (TMMi®) model, developed to complement the CMMI® framework, is rapidly becoming the test process improvement model of choice in Europe, Asia, and the US. Erik van Veenendaal, one of the developers of TMMi, describes the model’s five maturity levels-Initial, Managed, Defined, Management and Measurement, and Optimization-and the key testing practices required at each level. The model’s definition of maturity levels provides the basis for standardized TMMi assessments and certification, enabling companies to consistently deploy testing practices and collect industry metrics. The benefits of using the TMMi model include an improvement of testing methods, reduction in costs, and improved product quality.

Inspired by her years of consulting with large and small test teams, Dawn Haynes shares her observations of the most common and troublesome dysfunctions within software project teams-absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Often team members and managers are so heads-down in the day-to-day tasks that they aren’t even aware of their problems. Without an understanding of the dysfunctions and their root causes, improvement is a non-starter. Dawn provides a roadmap to identify the dysfunctions in any team and maps those issues to a set of recommendations for remediation. Using real project scenarios as examples, Dawn highlights debilitating dynamics-and solutions in context-among software project managers, development teams, and internal/external QA/test teams.

In the enterprise, mobile adoption is increasing at a fast pace-and so are the concerns about security, reliability, and quality for the software that drives mobile devices. Some of the unique and unfamiliar challenges faced while testing mobile applications are usability, network connectivity, online/offline content, call interruptions, varying form factors, networks, and device providers. Manish Mathuria describes how mobile testing differs from testing traditional enterprise systems. He provides practical tips on how to quickly and smoothly transition from traditional software testing to mobile testing while striving to deliver the same level of quality. Manish explores the nascent mobile testing tools available today to test enterprise mobile applications that are quickly reaching the same complexity as their desktop counterparts.

In most organizations cost reduction is still the number one motivation for test process improvement. Although several formal improvement models are popular, they require formal assessments, process change working groups, extensive implementation programs, and new organizational structures. Instead, you can quickly implement measures that improve your testing process incrementally within your day-to-day activities. Martin Pol presents a low-budget way to select and implement a set of measures that can rapidly improve testing’s contribution to your project’s success-simple risk analysis, proactive test design, coverage targeting, and novel ways to reuse tools, environments, expertise, and existing testware. Learn how low-budget test process improvement can become a natural behavior for your testing staff. Achieve quick wins by working more closely with development and using what you have-instead of buying or creating new tools.