NVP Software Solutions will be participating in the following software testing and quality assurance events happening this March in Ontario, Canada. The events are located in Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo and London in the coming two weeks. Check out the relevant websites for more information and to register. This is a great opportunity to connect with other software testing and quality assurance professionals. We hope to see you there! (more…)
Quality Assurance for Contracts may seem like something that does not need to be considered and can be ignored in the early stages of a business relationship. That seems to be the normal reaction. The number of contracts we have seen that pay no attention to Quality Assurance issues or summarise them in one line is quite large. Some of our favourites include:
And list goes on with no improvement.
Of course, we pay the price at the end when either the vendor points out that the Quality wording does not bind them to much or the customer starts demanding information and proof. You can pay for these omissions for years in extra work and effort to try and either get the information from vendors or in supplying more and more detailed results which you had not expected.
A few clauses outlining the expected Quality Factors and the expectations in terms of Testing and Quality Assurance can save masses of time and budget later on. Even better a few Fundamental Processes, put in place while people are not stressed thinking about the project can ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to information and communication.
Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Considering the Quality Assurance and testing aspects early in the contract can save you a lot of effort, time and funds later on.
Contact us for further information.
Downloading software is trivially easy these days. “There is an App for almost everything and downloading then only usually requires selecting them and agreeing to a few conditions. We fully realise that there have been many, many, articles on the dangers of accepting all the conditions and the sort of access that it gives to your phone or computer. However, we are more concerned here with the Quality of the Application regardless of how much it requires access to things you would rather keep private. The first step is in the testing that the App stores carry out before agreeing to include the App in the store. However, we are still concerned about whether the App actually does what it is supposed to before you trust it to help you in some way. The only real way to to prove that is to carry out proper Quality Assurance and Quality Control before you download the code. We know how difficult that is and there is not really any access for you to check short of installing it and hoping for the best in your particular software and hardware configuration.
There is an open question surrounding how to test that the App actually does what it is supposed to or what it is advertised to do. This needs to be checked either by the vendor or by independent testers.
Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Considering the Quality Assurance and testing aspects early can save you a lot of effort, time and funds later on.
Contact us for further information.
Recently someone in a class asked about the difference between debugging and scenario testing given the fact that many errors that need to be fixed must be completed in the code.
If we make the assumption that we are doing a calculation of some sort or running an algorithm then the following applies.
During User Acceptance Testing – the test should work end-to-end without an error in actual execution. The appearance, formatting or placement of the result may be incorrect but there should be no problems in running the actual process. This applies to normal cases. Clearly there is a possibility of issues with the unique cases that may have been identified late in the process. If the algorithm or test case does not run or cannot be completed then we are probably debugging rather than scenario testing.
During System Testing – the calculation should complete although the result may be wrong and one or more steps along the way may provide incorrect results. So the results should be available and the algorithm complete although the results may be wrong. System Testing is aimed at Requirements so this is where we should whether the results agree with the requirements. If the individual test cases do not run or cannot be completed then we are probably debugging rather than scenario testing.
During Integration Testing – each individual piece (validation of a piece of the overall algorithm) should run but they may not be able to work together. If the individual pieces do not work, then we are debugging. If they cannot be run as an integrated whole, then we are testing.
During Unit Testing – we are debugging each individual piece of the algorithm. This is code debugging and is not expected to be anything else.
Contact us to see whether you are scenario testing of debugging.
Diagram by Veronica
Enrolment for Winter 2018courses on the following topics is still open:
Courses are continuing from January to June 2018.
Take your opportunity to get training created by experts in the field. Make 2018 your best Quality Assurance year by being prepared and ready for whatever might come your way in terms of Software Testing or Quality Assurance.
Quality Assurance is not just a solution to a technical software problem. It is a consideration for the entire business. Software Quality Assurance failures impact the entire business and can lead to large problems if not addressed.
Training testers using NVP supplied courses provides testers with the techniques, tools, and knowledge to select the best method for testing – not the one that has been used for the last 15 years that’s falling short!
Quality assurance training is a great way to help ensure your systems are working for you while supporting and contributing to the growth of your company.
Implementation is by far the most interesting and challenging part of Selecting Software to run your business. This is where the details become major problems and resistance to change can derail the entire project.
It is crucial to do the following:
Many solution packages look simple on the outside but turn out to be complex to implement and maintain. Others have hidden depths you will never use while others will disappoint you. The selection process is crucial to anticipate some of these issues and make provisions to address them.
No matter what package is selected or what deployment process is used; at some point the implementation must go ahead or else it will never occur.
A study from some years ago provided the following figures for software that was purchased to be implemented:
Implementations have to fall into that 2% to be fully succesful and within the 5% to be partially sucessful. These are not high odds and to be successful requires a correct deployment process throughout the organisation.
If you have concerns about any of the three stages (Stage 1 and Stage 2 were described in earlier blogs) of acquiring and implementing software – call us at 1-800-811-4718 or contact us.
We are here to help.
As mentioned in the last blog, there is any number of packages that are available to do some or all of what you want the business to do. Whether that is to track Goods-in-Transit, Maintain Financial Records, Generate a Sales Catalogue, Create and send an email blast, Retain Customer Information, Track needed Repairs or Write a Document, there are many choices and all the choices have their advantages and disadvantages. Some are cheap, others expensive. Some provide functionality you will never use, others will leave you wishing the software did more.
If you are facing this conundrum, there is a solution. There are methods to evaluate what you need, then to evaluate what is available and then to finally bring the two together to make a quantified decision about what to buy (or build).
The high level process is:
Note: Any technical requirements that cannot be changed are given a 5 or you can simply set them up as initial questions and remove anyone not matching them.
Now comes the more interesting part: Implementation. That is a subject for the next blog.
We recently spoke to a municipality about their current IT practices and came away with several interesting pieces of information that point to the probable future of a lot of the software industry. (more…)