The Latest
Three Pounds of Manure in a Two-Pound Sack[magazine] Multitasking is not a magical cure for getting too much work done by too few resources. Listen in as Payson Hall eavesdrops on a coaching session between two managers about how to assign and prioritize work. |
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Learning from Experience: Software Testers Need More than Book Learning[magazine] People often point to requirements documents and process manuals as ways to guide a new tester. Research into knowledge transfer, as described in The Social Life of Information, suggests that there is much more to the process of learning. Michael Bolton describes his own experiences on a new project, noting how the documentation helped ... and didn't. |
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Resistance Is Futile[magazine] Why do so many people resist change, even when that change will be for the better? It's simple, really. Every change ends something, and endings mean loss. People don't like loss. Even the best changes mean something familiar will end. |
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What's It Mean? ...Reducing Imprecision to Improve Verification[magazine] Imprecise language makes understanding and, therefore, software verification more difficult. This article describes techniques for detecting and repairing vague and ambiguous software requirements. |
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Navigating Conflict[magazine] On good agile teams, conflict is frequent and viewed as normal. On great agile teams, conflict is constant and welcome as a catapult to high performance. What can we do to help teams chart their course through conflict so that it turns into a constructive force for greatness? |
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Understanding Software Performance Testing Part 1[magazine] Most people don't fully understand the complexities and scope of a software performance test. Too often performance testing is assessed in the same manner as functional testing and, as a result, fails miserably. In this four-part series we will examine what it takes to properly plan, analyze, design, and implement a basic performance test. This is not a discussion of advanced performance techniques or analytical methods; these are the basic problems that must be addressed in software performance testing. |
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Product versus Project - Where to Focus Your Efforts[article] Friends, by now we’ve all heard the predictions heralding the return of prudence in spending, optimization, needs-versus-wants and the underlying theme of rethinking everything imaginable. Thus, the focus of our effort seems to have an interwoven connection to the care and due diligence we employ as we chart our efforts and manage our expenditures. |
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The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Testers[article] Published in 1989, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey has helped millions establish great habits for achieving true interdependent effectiveness in their lives and their jobs. This article discusses the 7 habits, framing the habits for highly effective testers. |
Steve Miller
March 16, 2009 |
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Using Dashboards to Clarify Project and Product Perspectives in SCM [article] Joe Farah explains that a configuration management (CM) strategy must deal with product development from both a product and from a project perspective. Dashboard technology can help to clarify the perspectives and simplify the management functions, especially from an information perspective. |
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Business Criticality and the Investment of CM[article] Configuration management (CM) provides organizations with a level of control over the changes that occur in the engineering space. It can help protect the valuable code assets of the revenue generating products within the organization. CM provides the capability for products to manage the pieces therein that change at different rates, exposes the changes that are occurring, and establishes knowledge of the baseline of the product which then improves integrity and minimizes product regression. In addition, CM not only assesses the impact of change, but assists in problem resolution. While the value of CM is typically understood within engineering organizations, it is important to apply CM investment wisely. |
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Beware the IDE: The Risks of Standardizing on One IDE[article] Two topics that are likely to launch a development team into an impassioned discussion are development standards and development environments (IDEs, editors, etc). Combining the two topics into that of standardizing on development environments, is even more likely to spark debate. Decisions about development tools affect the day to day workings of each person on the team as well as the productivity of the team, and as such are important to discuss as a team organizes itself. |
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White Paper: Graphical UI Testing Checklist[article] A GUI as we now know is a computer-interface that uses images, typed text, and icons on the screen that replace many of the functions of the keyboard. This paper explains different validations need to be used while testing GUI. |
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White Paper: Software Testing Metrics[article] Effective management of any process requires quantification, measurement, and modeling. Software metrics provide quantitative approach to the development and validation of the software process models. Metrics help organization to obtain the information it needs to continue to improve its productivity, reduce errors and improve acceptance of processes, products and services and achieve the desired goal. |
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Quality Management in the World of Scrum and Agile IT System Development[article] Russell Pannone was asked, "Does quality assurance have a place in agile software development?" His knee-jerk answer was yes, but what form and function quality management takes depends on many factors. |
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Enterprise Agile: Yes, Your Whole Company Can Adopt Agile[article] About 12 months ago, our company started an initiative to adopt agile practices across our entire organization—not only our software development organization, but our business organization. For years we had experienced outstanding results by utilizing Scrum for our clients' application development projects. Team productivity improved, executive visibility strengthened, and overall quality increased. Our goal was to capture similar results for our business. Find out how we're doing! |
Melissa Meeker
March 9, 2009 |