NVP Software Solutions

Category: QA

  • Is your Software Testing Ad-Hoc?

    We wanted to start the new-year off with a topic we hear a lot about from many many people.

    Our Software Testing is Ad-hoc (i.e. created or done for a particular purpose as necessary.).

    • It is never reused.
    • We are always looking at testing each project as if it were a brand new experience.
    • Very little gets carried forward from previous projects and a lot of stuff seems to disappear

    If you have heard this or felt this way, you are not alone. The comment that “We had this somewhere but I cannot remember where or cannot find it right now” gets repeated a lot.

    The question is why does it occur. Some of the answers are below:

    • Project budgets are not built with the intent of supplying tests to later projects.
    • No-one can predict whether the same testcases will be needed in a future project
    • No-one can predict whether the testcases will be valid for a future project (may be outdated).
    • It is not possible to estimate how long it will be before an update is needed and we might re-use the testcases.

    All of the above reasons mitigate against creating and retaining robust testcases suitable for future use. The end result is ad-hoc testcases created for the project and discarded after one or a few uses.

    If you want a process that will solve this problem, come back in 2 weeks when we will provide a methodology that will solve this problem at minimal project cost and with positive ROI over the lifetime of the software.

    In the meantime, if you are in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) or KW, see our next blog next week about the coming presentations.

    If you cannot wait for the two weeks for an answer look at some of the following information:

    Contact us or join the discussion.
    Past Blogs
    Monthly Newsletter

  • Look ahead to 2019

    So what is coming in 2019. No doubt, if that could be predicted accurately, we would not be doing this right now! We would be somewhere on a warm sunny beach.

    The easy answers are:

    1. Manual testing will continue.
    2. More automation will be done and much more will be wanted (with or without the understanding of what it involves).
    3. The software we are testing will evolve.

    The harder predictions are the external events:

    1. Increasing legal and regulatory requirements for testing can be expected. While some specific regulations in particular industries will be rolled back , we expect the general direction to be more external requirements relating to legal liability and fulfillment of specific requirements.
    2. New industries will move mainstream with software and subsequent need for testing. (If we knew which ones, we would tell you.)
    3. There will be no letup in the pace of software testing. Items that are ‘old’ and mainstream may be assumed to be okay and require minimal testing but new items will still require testing.
    4. The level of interaction between programs will continue to increase.
    5. AI will impact testing.

    Things we would like to see (our wishlist):

    1. Increased emphasis on ensuring the customer’s needs are met (after all they are paying the bill).
    2. Better understanding of what Quality Assurance and Quality Control has to offer. It is still too late and an afterthought and those that go into the testing with the assumption that they know it all will not cover what they need to cover to reduce the risk.

    One thing that might come up is the necessity (because of volume) to make some code pieces ‘bulletproof’. No matter what you throw at them, they will operate in the way that is expected – either via processing or rejecting the provided information.

    Want to discuss 2019?

    Contact us or join the discussion.
    Past Blogs
    Monthly Newsletter

    Happy New Year.

  • Review of the Year – Automation

    Review of the Year – Automation
    Automation of software testing is something that seems to be on the minds of many Quality Assurance Managers and Test Leads. It has been a popular topic for many years.

    Currently we get requests for particular tools and knowledge of their attributes in particular environments; these are usually serviceable. Current status seems to be a separate tool for every need and environment and sometimes every organisation. Based on past experience, in a few years, someone will consolidate all the disparate technologies under one umbrella tool. Then the cycle will start again with people inventing new tools for specific niches and products.

    We also receive requests for people to “automate our testing” with no decision on the tool attached. This is a completely different question and requires some discussion to occur before the attempt to automate even starts. We need to know the what; when and Why the company wants to automate their testing. The thing we want to avoid are the actions below.

    1. Purchase Automated Test Tool.
    2. Install Tool.
    3. Wait for successful automation to save all the cost of the tool and cost of manual testing.
    4. Become disillusioned.
    5. Go to 1; Repeat ad infinitum.

    This has occurred over and over in different organisations. A lot of money gets used up with no progress and eventually the organisation gives up on the cycle and continues manual testing (see last week’s blog).

    Our best recommendations are as follows:

    Look up where you are on the technology maturity level with your current technology.

    Decide what you need (criteria are available) in terms of automation and what you are capable of handling based on maturity level.

    Then do a Plan to implement your automation. Never assume it will just occur. It won’t.

    Want to discuss how to automate effectively? Contact us.

  • Review of the Year – Manual Testing

    Review of the Year – Manual Testing

    Manual Testing is something that seems to be on the minds of many Quality Assurance Managers and Test Leads. Usually they want out of the Manual Testing and view Automated Testing (Blog planned for next week) as the saviour of their budget and time constraints.

    However, judging by the vacant positions we get requests to fill, there is still no shortage of Manual Testing positions at least in our area. There are still a lot of requests for Manual Testers with business knowledge preferred and new software and startups still start with manual testing. We get requests for Automated Testing with specific tools usually requested and will discuss this next week.

    The part that seems to be missing from many of the requests and the subsequent position is any discussion of the How; What; Why; When; and If; of the manual testing.

    There seems to be limited thought given to How the testing is to be done apart from some vague request to build testcases and execute them.

    Little consideration is given to What to test and Why beyond the statement: “We need to test the software”.

    When and If are not such an issue: Yesterday and definitely are the one word answers to those questions.

    These answers certainly provide freedom for the tester to do what they want but that may not always align with all the stakeholder’s wishes and may be 180 degrees off in some cases.

    This leads to a poor ROI and a large waste of time and money.

    There will continue to be a market for manual testers for new changes and new applications that are not yet mainstream. We expect automation to take over many of the repetitive tasks (as has always been the case) The only open question at this stage might be what AI will do to the industry. That we cannot predict.

    Want to discuss the effectiveness of your Manual Testing further? Contact us.

  • QA with No time

    QA with No Time

    One of the constant issues that comes up in discussions or classes is the lack of time for Quality Assurance and Quality Control. We seem to be under constant time pressure and with Agile and DevOps it has become worse rather than better.

    While Quality Assurance cannot anticipate everything, the Continuous Improvement aspect can help improve the time considerations. The key is to prioritise and plan for the high priority items to be completed.

    Some people will say (with a fair amount of truth) that even planning for the priorities and only doing those high priority items will still not be possible in the time allotted for Quality Assurance and Quality Control. With development reacting to changing requirements from the users, constant upgrades in technology (both hardware and software) and impacts from other projects, the time scale can shrink radically.

    However, without a definitive list of what must be done and the risk of not completing attached, it is very hard to push back against the time pressure. With the list in hand, it is easier to quantify the risk of not doing something.

    Some people will say that they do not have the time to even create the list. They are under extreme pressure to start testing immediately and provide issues so the developers have something to handle now that they have finally delivered all the changes requested by the user. Our recommendation, in this case, is to simply make a list of the functions or requirements, assign High, Medium or Low to the risk of not testing that function or requirement and send it around for review. This will at least alert people to the challenges faced by Quality Assurance and Quality Control.

    Want to discuss your list further? Contact us.

  • A Better Way – Case Study 5 – Distributed with Poor Testing

    A Better Way – Case Study 5 – Distributed with Poor Testing

    In our last several blogs we have discussed ‘A Better Way to Test”.

    The issue is to apply this to actual situations. We have 5 Case Studies we plan to use over the next several weeks to address this. The fifth case study might be called “Distributed with Poor Testing”.

    In this case the developers were geographically remote, the Quality Assurance (such as it was) was local and the clients were geographically remote. This was a somewhat unusual situation since it is frequently the Quality Assurance that is remote and the other two local. However, some of the considerations had to be the same. We needed a way of communicating things without losing anything in transit.

    Two solutions came to mind immediately:

    1. Make sure there are stated expectations regarding the flow of information. This applies to any artifact like a test case, a requirement, a defect, or a design document. We did this via some flow charts we placed in the Master Test Plan although there are certainly other places they could have been recorded.
    2. Acquire some tools that will support this information store. There are many free or very cheap cloud-based tools that support these processes.

    Once we had the framework in place, we set up the appropriate loops and feedback mechanisms to ensure information flow and good quality. As time went on we expanded the groups who had access to the systems ensuring that the information flowed in the correct way and with sufficient security to the concerned parties. The two way flow of information allowed us to eliminate a backlog of defects that had accumulated and start addressing customer concerns in a timely manner.

    The investment was not large when compared to the improvements realised.

    If you want to discuss this further contact us.

  • A Better Way – Case Study 4 – Caught Between Vendor and Client!

    A Better Way – Case Study 3 – Test Plan in a Hurry!

    In our last several blogs we have discussed ‘A Better Way to Test”.

    The issue is to apply this to actual situations. We have 5 Case Studies we plan to use over the next several weeks to address this. The fourth case study might be called “Caught between Vendor and Client”.

    Although one could argue that Quality Assurance has always been caught between a Vendor or Vendors (developers) and possibly multiple clients (users), it has become a little more obvious and formal with the purchase of software from outside groups. This is not something that is going to go away. Assembly of a solution rather than building it has been around for quite a while and will probably become more frequent rather than less. The question is what Quality Assurance does to “Bridge the Gap” between what the client wants (‘perfection!’) and what the vendors are willing to supply in terms of proof given competitive secrets and possibly some Non-disclosure requirements.

    In our case (as discussed here) we built a plan that provided the final client with what they wanted. We then mapped what was supplied by the vendors against what was required and filled in the rest. Not surprisingly, the main items that were missing were Integration testing between what the various suppliers had provided and the type of testing that needed the entire system to be there including Performance, Security and Usability (to name a few).

    Bridging the gap in this fashion satisfied everyone and made use of everything that was already in place. That saved us a lot of time and allowed us to concentrate the tests that were critical to the client.

    If you want to discuss this further contact us.

  • A Better Way – Case Study 3 – Test Plan in a Hurry!

    A Better Way – Case Study 3 – Test Plan in a Hurry!

    In our last several blogs we have discussed ‘A Better Way to Test”.

    The issue is to apply this to actual situations. We have 5 Case Studies we plan to use over the next several weeks to address this. The third case study might be called “Test Plan in a Hurry!”.

    This issue came up from an organisation that was part way through (as usual!) an engagement and suddenly required a test plan to satisfy the client. The request came from the Project Manager on Friday with a deadline of Monday afternoon. There was no prior exposure to the project; no knowledge that the request was coming; and very little in the way of Project Documentation (with certainly no time to review it). There was a temptation to ignore the request and had they not been an existing client, we might have been tempted to point out that this was not really an effective use of time. However, given the nature of the request and the people from whom it came, we went ahead with the attempt.

    Clearly, we were not going to get detailed testcases or test objectives based on what we had been given. So we opted for a process based Master Test Plan. In other words, we put together a statement of how the project would be tackled from a Quality Assurance point of view when the information became available. We put in processes for all the Quality Assurance items and highlighted the risks inherent in testing under these conditions (including the lack of any understanding of the project) and went forward with that. We put a strong emphasis on what was required now in order to make this work.

    If you want to discuss this further contact us.