NVP Software Solutions

Category: Software Testing

  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 8

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 8

    Next Steps

    Once you have a self-perpetuating group addressing Quality Ideas, what do you do?
     

    You are not finished! There are always groups and areas that have not been considered yet and if you have really run out of new areas then go back to some of the earlier ones and consider them with a fresh mind. There will be more things that can be improved!

    Talking to people in other companies can often provide a fresh perspective. Go to conferences or check items that are online. It is not always something directly relevant that sparks an idea. Sometimes I look at how someone has addressed an issue using technology and use the ideas in the technology to solve my process problem. I may have no immediate need for the technology itself but the idea can work wonders. There is always a fresh idea! It is also recommended that you publish your solutions and invite comment to see if other people have different ideas or thoughts on solving them.

     

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  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 7

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 7

    Out of ideas

    What happens if you are out of ideas of what or how to improve?

     

    Not surprisingly this has been considered by some of the pioneers of Quality Assurance.  They understood that there was a limit to the number of ideas that one person or a group could generate.  Even though it was possible to identify the problems, solutions might not be obvious.  After all, if there was an obvious solution, it would have been implemented already.

    The recommendation was to change the composition of the group coming up with the solutions while retaining a minimum of continuity.  One recommendation was for everyone but the idea recorder to change.  The thought was that the idea recorder would know what had been considered (retaining the history) but might not have a vested interested in either supporting or denigrating any of the existing or new ideas.    The change needs to be done before the group becomes entrenched and before it loses momentum.

    There is nothing to prevent people coming back in a few years with new solutions to new problems (or suggesting them to the new group once they have been outside for a while).  Experience always helps.

     

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  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 6

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 6

    Have we been successful?

    Last time we gathered some statistics based on the new process once it had settled down. Now we need to compare the new results with the baseline from before the changes were made. If the results have improved, then we keep the change we made. If things have not improved then we need to back out the change and measure again.

    Once we have everything either at the same level as the baseline or improved, then we can embark on the next round of improvements using the same process.

    Two things that can cause problems:
    1. Sometimes the changes are interrelated. This will require research and a method of disentangling the impacts of the changes. Otherwise we may end up undoing the wrong change and find ourselves bouncing back and forth with no long term improvement.
    2. We have to watch for noise in the system or special items that cause the measurements to be inconsistent. No two measurements will be identical and there will be some variation at some level. This has to be ignored or the measurements taken over a long enough time period to even out any variations due to noise in the system. The other item that has to be watched is some special item like a large project or a freeze on development that will cause either the baseline or the new measurements to be inaccurate. Either an adjustment will have to be made or the measurements excluded from the calculation.

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  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 5

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 5

    Last time we gathered some baseline statistics.  These need to be recorded and retained somewhere.  Now we want to make some changes.  We may want to pause the measurements while we make the changes since they will not be accurate.

    Based on some of the statistics we gathered last time.

    1. Is the process taking too long? Look for parts of the process that are delayed (waiting for inputs or resources) or repeated and resolve the issue.
    2. Is the process being repeated with the same inputs because of failures? Complete a root cause analysis of why the inputs are wrong and fix the upstream process.
    3. Is there a long delay in the middle while external resources are assembled or contacted? Determine if better coordination with external departments would help or consider training internal resources to do the task.
    4. Are computer resources maxing out during the process? Enlist an expert in performance to determine the exact cause of the resources maxing out.  Which tasks are taking all the resources?  Do we need more CPU/Memory or do we need to fix something in the program that may be searching too many records(for example).

    Once the changes above have been implemented and have had a chance to take effect, re-enable the statistics gathering with the same set of measurements being recorded.

    Next blog: Have we been successful?

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  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 4

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 4

    As promised last week we will talk about statistics in this blog. In the last blog, we talked about completing a deeper dive into a process that was identified as causing problems. Before we make any changes we have to gather some statistics to form a baseline. This can be a little difficult since it may not be obvious what we should be counting. However, here are some suggestions based on the process analysis.

    1. Is the process taking too long? Measure the length of time it takes (pick some obvious end point like when the process is started and when it is finished).
    2. Is the process being repeated with the same inputs because of failures? Count the number of repeats with the same data.
    3. Is there a long delay in the middle while external resources are assembled or contacted? Measure the wait time and make sure to remove it from total time the process takes.
    4. Are computer resources maxing out during the process? Enable a performance monitor and save the results.

    Some of these will be guesses and some may need to be measured at a lower level to get more granular figures. But the idea is to identify items that are possible candidates for improvement.

    Next blog: Act on the statistics.

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  • Starting Quality Assurance – Part 3

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 3

    In our last blog but one, we asked for people to vote on the places in the SDLC that were causing the biggest problems. We asked for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices and then we were going to sum the votes to get the most critical areas. Once we have the totals we know where to concentrate our efforts.

    Now we need to do some process analysis which is like the first step but a deeper dive into the step. Again we suggest sketching this out on a board somewhere with each step in a separate box and the connections between the steps included. We also recommend leaving this somewhere where everyone can add comments and make changes. There is no hurry on this process, we want to be sure to have all the input we can obtain before starting to gather statistics. Once everyone has had a chance to review, we can publish it as a definition of the process.

    Next week: Statistics.

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  • Quality Assurance in 2021 – Starting – Part 2

    Starting Quality Assurance – Part 2

    Last week we mentioned looking for places where items are going wrong once we had our initial picture.  This is still in the beginning stages and is not meant to prove anything.  We have not started to gather any statistics since we really do not know what might be worth measuring.  So our step is simply to divide up the diagram into discrete pieces and ask people to vote for the 1st 2nd, 3rd choices for the pieces of the process causing the most trouble.  We will assign 5 points to the a first place vote, 3 to a second and 1 to a third.  Total up the points and determine where the worst offending problems exist.  You probably already know the answers but it does not hurt to get confirmation from other people.  It also makes it easier to make changes if everyone is voting for, and agreeing where the worst problems exist.

    Next week; Process Analysis and Statistics.

    Test Leader or Manager with concerns? Consider the Test Managers Conference.
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  • Quality Assurance in 2021 – Starting

     

    Starting Quality Assurance

     

     

    We recently were asked for 5 top ideas to launch Quality Assurance in an organization.  They were looking for a practical process without too much theory.

    As a suggestion, we recommended that you start by sketching your process in a diagram.  This is quite literally a hand drawn sketch with only the main processes shown and no details.

    If you have a product, put down the major steps it goes through.  If you are doing Software Development, sketch the major project steps.  This is only intended as a guide to what occurs.

    Once we have this documented, it will be much easier to determine the next step (which is where things are going wrong).


     

     

     

     
     
     
     

    Test Leader or Manager with concerns? Consider the Test Managers Conference.
    NVP Quality Assurance Services
    Contact us
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