Testing Services

Posted by Nandakumar Thiruvengadam at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On April 18th, 2013, at QUEST 2013 QAI Conference & Expo @ Chicago, Allyson Rippon, Executive Global IT Manager, UBS and I presented our views on establishing a standard for testing activities across the organization. Based on our presentation at the conference, this post will contain some important insights on how to build the brand image of testing across the organization. 

Continue reading "Six key considerations while conducting assessments" »

Posted by Kiruba Vijayaraghavan at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sun's scattered rays are too weak to start a fire, but once you focus them with a magnifying glass they will bring paper to flame in seconds. The same is true of human beings--once their collective energy is focused on a challenge; there is little they can't accomplish.

A common experience of most test management teams is that they are pretty good in setting goals and targets but more often they don't have a consistent approach to achieve them or are trying to focus on too many things at once.

We might have been sharing the same experience had we not been introduced to Franklin Covey's 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) framework through a 2 day internal workshop conducted by Infosys. 4DX is powerful methodology that helps translate business strategy into laser-focused action. This framework helped us to accomplish a Wildly Important Goal (WIG) of increasing revenue share from specialized services by 7% y-o-y. We achieved this goal 3 months ahead of the target date.

Continue reading "4DX - The Golden Experience" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 2:14 PM | Permalink

Continue reading "Benefits realized through Effective Test Data Management" »

Posted by Hemalatha Murugesan at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my first two blogs in this series (1 & 2), I listed out the 5 key areas that will enable QA organizations to play a vital role in the client's IT optimization journey. Taking this discussion forward, in this blog, we will take a look at the second parameter that will help in the paradigm shift - INWARD DEVELOPMENT TO OUTWARD BUSINESS FOCUS.

QA organizations need to shift their focus from Inward Development to a more outward business (UAT) focus. They must earn the credibility of business by involving domain experts in requirements gathering/FS analysis upfront. Alternatively, they need to devise innovative engagement models in order to leverage the domain knowledge of the business users.

Listed below are a few measures that would help to establish this credibility:

·      Enable domain experts from QA to act as a bridge between IT development and business.

·     Complement QA and UAT organizations goals and efforts through better collaboration, training and knowledge-sharing.

·   Requirements/Functional Specifications to be thoroughly verified. Defects detection should start from these documents.

·      Reduce time to market by optimizing test scenarios, thereby reducing implementation hassles and early detection of critical business defects.

·      Devise new engagement models, tools and solutions to manage expectations and enhance collaboration.

·      Identify automation tools and solutions that are easy to understand and use from business user perspective. Model-based testing and functional automation tools usage should be simplified keeping this in mind. 

These measures will help in the identification of critical business defects upfront. Besides, they will also significantly reduce the overall time to market, by considerably reducing time and effort required for ST/SIT/UAT.

In my next blog, we will talk about another key parameter - ISOLATED TOOLS TO INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS.

See you soon.

Posted by Nandakumar Thiruvengadam at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Continue reading "The Testing Standard journey session @ QUEST 2013" »

Posted by Kiruba Vijayaraghavan at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Organizations today tend to jump into outsourcing the testing function with expectations of significant cost savings, reduced cycle times, and higher quality without knowing exactly how to achieve these goals. Having worked on outsourced testing engagements both as the client and as the vendor, I have observed common stumbling blocks and challenges and can provide lessons learned that will help you to avoid, or at least be better prepared for, these challenges. 

I will begin with things to consider and do before you begin the RFP process.  Once your organization has committed to proceeding, I will identify key items to address during the RFP process. What happens after you have signed the contract?  The final section will take you from the transition to steady state and into continuous improvement. 

To learn about these items and more, come join me and other quality professionals in Chicago for the QAI Quest Conference & Expo, April 15-19. For more information on my session, please proceed to http://www.qaiquest.org/2013/conference/testing-outsourcing-challenges-views-from-both-sides/.

Hope to see you in Chicago!

Posted by Richard Lay at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my last blog, I listed out the 5 key areas that will enable QA organizations to play a vital role in the client's IT optimization journey. Taking this discussion forward, in this blog (series 2), we will take a look at the first parameter that will help in the paradigm shift - INDEPENDENT TO OPTIMIZATION.

What is "Test Optimization"? Let me illustrate this with a case study from my experience. 

A leading banking IT organization analyzed their IT spend across all phases of SDLC for few of their large technology programs (fresh development). This analysis revealed an interesting pattern. The cost of testing (across all phases of SDLC) accounted for nearly 60% of the overall program cost.

Continue reading "Next-Gen QA - Independent to Optimization " »

Posted by Nandakumar Thiruvengadam at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"How do you select the appropriate test tool for your functional testing?"

"As per the listed features, the automation tool we invested in seems to be right. But, the % of automation we could really achieve is very low. What did we overlook at the time of tool selection?"

"Both my applications are of the same technology. We achieved great success in automation with one of them and failed miserably with the other. What could be the reason?"

Continue reading "Test Tool Selection for Functional Automation - The missing dimension" »

Posted by Jaya Bhagavathi Bhallamudi at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have quite frequently encountered scenarios in which the clients, managers and developers keep using the terms 'Performance Model' and 'Workload Model' synonymously. However, I figured out in many cases they actually wanted to refer to the usage patterns of their application business processes by the end users and the respective application load. So, I kept wondering if these terms lost their meaning over a period of time or is it the mere ignorance of what each term specifically stands for. In this blog, I attempt to provide a distinct difference to these terms which in reality represent two completely different concepts that have their own meaning in the Application Performance Management (APM) space. In general terms, a mathematical or scientific 'Model' represents a system with certain inputs and specific outputs. 

Continue reading "Performance Modeling & Workload Modeling - Are they one and the same?" »

Posted by Madhu Tanikella at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)