NVP Software Solutions

Category: Strategy

  • Are your Quality Assurance Issues Worrying You?

    Are your Quality Assurance Issues Worrying You?

    Schedule a no-charge one hour consultation with a senior Quality Assurance consultant for an initial assessment/problem solving session.

    • Align your Quality Assurance Practices with your client’s needs before they ask.
    • Incorporate Quality Assurance and Testing to catch issues early while they are cheap to fix
    • Lay the groundwork for future success.

    NVP Software Solutions

    • NVP Software Solutions provides industry-leading software quality assurance and testing services, customized to address client’s business requirements. 

    Contact us: Nvp.ca

  • Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 5

    Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 5

    Second round of interviews. Generally assessments require a second round of interviews (and sometimes more). However, before embarking on the second round, it is critical that the first round be fully analyzed and any new questions or clarifications that might be required are identified and added to the process. Information from the first round might drive new questions for some of the original list of people and clarifications of what was actually expressed in the first round. The second round must find out all the in-depth information to complete the assessment.

  • Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 4

    Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 4

    In last week’s post we asked the question “Where does it hurt?” or ‘What concerns you?”. Obviously we are going to get different answers to these questions depending on who you ask. If no answer is forthcoming, then there would be a question about the need for an Assessment. However, we are usually inundated with concerns and problems – some real and some imagined. As part of the interview we need to ensure that every concern is noted (no matter how trivial it may appear) and that everyone has a chance to state their issues. Answers to this question will probably drive a lot of the second round of interviews to ensure we get all sides of the problem. Some people may not consider some items to be issues until someone else mentions it.

  • Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 3

    Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 3

    In the last post on this topic we said we would look at the initial set of questions that might be posed to someone involved in an assessment. Obviously the initial set are intended to elicit the information on the person and where they belong in the organization and for what parts of the product they are responsible. These questions are self-evident. There could be red flags raised here if the person does not feel they are responsible for anything or have too much for which they are needed.

    However, assuming that those questions go well, the next two may be crucial:

    1. ‘Where does it hurt?’ or “What concerns you?’ these questions can frequently lead to a long list of issues. After all we would not be doing an assessment if there were no concerns.
    2. How do you interact with other people who have input on this product? It is crucial to get this question answered by everyone before going for a second round. The answers to this may uncover a lot of secondary questions for people to whom we have already spoken.
  • Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 2

    Process for a Quality Assessment – Step 2

    There will be little progress on an assessment without an understanding of basic system architecture. One of the first requests is for a system diagram so we can start putting names, titles and process questions beside each section. Two red flags may be raised here:

    1. If no-one can generate or find a system diagram then there is an immediate concern that there is no-one who understands the system.
    2. Assuming we can obtain a system diagram, are there sections for which it is impossible to attach a responsible person? Again, an immediate concern that there are pieces of the system that are being left unattended.

    Our next blog on this topic will drill down to the initial set of questions.

  • Working Towards the Final Result

    Working Towards the Final Result

    Finding out requirements by digging through the hierarchy endlessly or how not to implement a product.  A recent upgrade included a migration from one database (home grown) to a commercially available product.  It is well known that migrations are always dangerous and can be quite time consuming.  The issue was that an attempt was made to replicate the existing (and mainly unknown) database into the new one rather than asking what was important to know after the migration was complete.  The testing turned into a series of cycles while the testers dug deeper and deeper into the existing database.

    Lessons Learned:  Make sure to take a 360 degree view of the expectations before going down the testing path.