The Latest

Turn to The Last Word, where software professionals who care about quality give you their opinions on hot topics. This month, Linda Hayes details why being able to predict the end state of your data at the beginning of a test is vital to achieving accurate results.

We're pleased to bring you technical editors who are well respected in their fields. Get their take on everything that relates to the industry, technically speaking. In this issue, Mike Cohn discusses the myth of multitasking and how trying to work on too many tasks at once can actually kill productivity.

Building relationships is important because trust allows us to share information more freely. In his article, Jason Yip explains why he'd rather have a face-to-face conversation about bugs instead of relying solely on a traditional bug report.

We may be creatures of habit—adhering to and promoting processes we know well—but we also habitually look to other work environments that appear capable of nurturing our ideas once an old environment becomes depleted. Ed Weller believes that searching for greener pastures is unnecessary. You just need to learn how to cultivate your managers in order to create an environment that will harbor your ideas. Ed explains why you'll end up grazing fruitlessly if you can't plant your ideas with management.

Service and a good variety of features are key in developing relationships with the customer. We always want to satisfy our customers. But if we sometimes exceed their expectations, overly satisfied customers will more than likely spread the news about our service or product--we've added whipped cream, and maybe even a cherry, on top of their ice cream. In this week's column, Mike Cohn explains how he measures customer satisfaction using Kano analysis, which categorizes the features customers look for into baseline, linear, and exciter features. Doing so will help us identify which features will delight our end users, and help us surpass the level of simple satisfaction.

All code is not created equal. Learn from a master of the craft how to spot bad code and mold it into good. This month, Mike Clark explains how writing automated tests can give you confidence to change code fearlessly.

Picture this: a robust and scalable software build and deployment process minus the chaos. Follow these guidelines and best practices for building and deploying multiple applications in an integrated environment, and you might just find your happy ending.