Effective Test Management

Summary
Testing is a crucial process which takes a significant percentage of the project (figures of 30%-60% are often quoted). Effective management of a project's testing activities and effective improvement of the overall testing process are therefore of significant concern. This workshop highlights the key activities and concerns with test planning, tracking and control. Specific guidance on how to improve your testing process is given and an overview of the Testing Maturity Model is also provided.

Level and Orientation of Audience
Beginner/intermediate level (with a few advanced topics). Aimed at those responsible for organising and improving the testing process i.e. project managers, project leaders, test managers, test team leaders, senior test personnel, test analysts, etc. Assumes at least two years test experience and also some leadership experience.

Learning Objectives
To provide participants with the knowledge and skills to successfully plan and track testing activities to meet objectives in terms of time, budget, quality, risk, etc.. To provide specific guidance on how to successfully improve the testing process.

Topics covered

• Introduction
  • Expectations and issues exercise
  • Test management fundamentals
  • Preventative testing
  • The balance between static and dynamic testing
• Test planning (based on the IEEE-829 standard)
  • Test strategy/approach
  • Testing new systems
  • Testing changes - regression testing strategies
  • Features to be tested and not tested
  • Test process
  • Staffing and training needs
  • Estimating and scheduling resources
  • Defining test deliverables
  • Test environment, tools and support
  • Software and planning risks
  • Test plan as a communication/buy-in mechanism
  • Levels of planning
  • Phase planning
  • Exercises: test planning exercise, risk management exercise, MS Project demo
• Case Study
  • Improving test planning - Experiences of an Irish software development company showing starting position, approach adopted and results obtained
• Test Tracking and Control
  • What should be tracked? - schedule, critical machine resources, test case execution, etc.
  • Managing the squeeze on testing
  • Incident/anomaly management
  • Test Reporting
  • Suspension criteria and resumption requirements
  • Coverage and completion criteria
• Configuration management
  • What is Configuration Management?
  • Relationship between testing and configuration management
  • Test problems due to poor CM
  • Configuration items, configuration control, Software Change Control Boards (SCCBs) and the role of the tester, release planning, etc.
  • CM tools
• Test Process Improvement
  • Benchmarking and current industry practice
  • What to improve and in what order
  • The CMM and the complementary TMM - the TMM is a maturity models developed specifically for testing. It was developed by the Illinois Institute of Technology for organisations already using the CMM. It contains 5 maturity levels, an assessment model and uses terminology familiar to those on CMM-based improvement programs.
  • How to improve - Change management and improvement planning
  • Critical success factors and lessons learnt
  • Testing infrastructure and organisation
• Test Metrics
  • Why and what to measure
  • Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) approach
  • Measurement principles and Lessons learnt
  • Measuring test effectiveness and efficiency
  • Exercise: on metrics selection and planning
• Inspections
  • Why, when and what to inspect?
  • Costs and benefits of inspections
  • The role of inspections in relation to dynamic testing
  • See 'Practical and Effective Inspections' and 'Moderating Formal Inspections' for process details
• Other QA activities
  • Product/process Audits and reviews
  • Standards and checklists
  • Entry/exit checks
• Third Party Package Testing - key concepts
• People management, teams and leadership
  • What makes a good tester?
  • What makes a good test team leader?
  • Communication issues
  • Motivation
  • Team building
  • People/Cultural issues
  • Resolving conflict
  • The four-quadrant leadership model
  • Time management
  • Negotiation
  • Exercises: scenario discussions on people-related issues
• Test Documentation
  • Documentation standards (plans, specs, incidents, release reports, etc.)
  • In-house templates (approach document, test plan, etc.)
• Test Automation overview
  • Types of CAST tools:
  • Categories of CAST tools; Requirements testing tools; Static analysis; Test design tools; Test data preparation; Batch test execution; On-line test execution tools; On-line test execution tools - caution; GUI testing; GUI test stages; Test harnesses; Test drivers; Performance testing toolkit; Dynamic analysis; Debugging; File comparison; Testware management; Incident management; Analysis, reporting and metrics; Source coverage. ¨ Tool selection and implementation:
  • Papers; Tool implementation process; Keys to success; CAST limitations; CAST availability; Three routes to "shelfware"; Selecting and implementing a tool; Overview of the selection process; Where to start; Tool selection considerations; The tool selection and evaluation team; Evaluating the shortlist; Pilot project; Evaluation of pilot; Planned phased installation; Testing Foundations; End.
• Summary
  • Summary of key points
  • Common issues and in-house issues (from initial execise)
  • Expectations revisited
  • Implementation planning exercise and wrap-up discussion