quality assurance
Managing with blinders on
Most managers today have blinders on when it comes to solving the problems of complex projects: They are lost among the trees, and can’t see the forest for what it really is. Too many project managers are focused on the day-to-day problems of the project and have lost sight of their overall strategy. So, with KPMG telling us that nearly 70% of projects are failing to meet their goals, what’s the real solution? What’s the one thing that’s going to make the most difference?
Do hackers make the best testers?
The most valuable asset a Software Tester can have is an attitude of gleeful problem discovery. Someone that loves to break systems, discover their imperfections, and explore their weaknesses makes a great tester. But, to be really good, a product tester really has to care about the quality of the product.
Successfully applying lessons learned
Capturing lessons learned at the end of a project sounds like a great idea. Who wouldn’t want to reflect on what was done right, what could be done better, and then apply those lessons to the next project? Unfortunately, few organizations take the time to build the right kind of lessons learned system, and that means critical information is being lost.
Bad employees rarely quit and good ones are hard to find
Finding great employees is really hard. I don’t mean it’s difficult — I mean it’s virtually impossible to succeed in hiring great employees all the time. It’s equally hard to keep them, as it turns out. As Don Rainey recently wrote: Good employees are really hard to find — A solid worker isn’t just difficult to find, [...]
Fix your boss (or, reduce risk to quality using a matrix approach)
How do you ensure that one person doesn’t derail your entire project? Most of us have been there before. Maybe it’s a co-worker who doesn’t work well with the team. Maybe it’s your boss, who has to oversee every single decision even though he’s an overtasked bottleneck. Either problem poses a critical risk to your project: Delays, mistakes and rework because one person isn’t part of a streamlined effort. Learn how the situation can be improved, realizing positive gains in this habitually entrenched process.
Quality versus quantity
Qualitative decisions often lose out to quantitative decisions. Every one of us lives this every day, quite often without realizing that we are doing it. It’s not enough to define our process or methodology and let it settle in. Yes, we absolutely need to have a clearly defined and adopted set of processes and procedures. But at the same time, it’s important to never let it become too rote.
What do you mean, SQA isn’t testing?
Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and Structured Software Testing (SST) are completely different fields. Every single book on the topic (textbooks, course materials, you name it) make this clear. In fact, most emphasize how important it is that these fields be completely separate. Consider: Quality Assurance is responsible for auditing and ensuring all aspects of work [...]
The case against releasing early
In Releasing Early Is Not Always Good? Heresy! author Jason Cohen discusses the reasoning behind “release early” and the argument against. He points out the pitfalls of the rapid-development-early-release paradigm, and introduces a few practical ideas to avoid them. While I don’t agree with all his points (and would add many of my own), it’s [...]
Exposing the enterprise to risk: Who decides what not to test?
Testing, testing, testing. In a recent article by John Parkinson (Strong Signals, CIO Insight magazine) the value of testing is raised on par with the activity of design and coding itself: Testing is becoming as necessary a profession as design and coding. Skills and experience matter. Process matters. Tools matter. Let the tests begin. Our [...]
Formal inspections: An introduction
The price of software problems is very high: As much as 50% of development and 100% of all maintenance costs can be attributed to software defects. Often, this price becomes apparent late in the software life cycle—quite often after the software has reached its operational phase (after the software ships)—as previously undetected defects are discovered [...]
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