NVP Software Solutions

Tag: Automated testing

  • Staying In

    Like many people in the past few weeks, we have been spending more time at home and in isolation as best we can. Most non-essential businesses in our area have been closed or are closing tonight. However, several of our clients are in the exempt list so work will be continuing in the short term at least. Most items can be done online so there is little loss of productivity.

    The biggest change that has been noticed is the slowing down of some projects. Projects that would have rushed the planning stage are now taking time to consider all the possibilities and the required Testing and Quality Assurance processes before signing off on the scope and timeline. It is nice to have the time to consider the best way of doing project tasks even if the original reason for this change is not one we, or anyone, wanted. A global pandemic is NOT something anyone wants.

    It seems the Project and Product Managers are also considering this since they realise they may have limited time to implement the projects and little or no chance to redo items. Even if we wait until after the concern has passed, there will be a backlog of projects that will put pressure on timelines. The more we are ready with full planning and everything ready, the faster the projects will move at the end.

    For projects and initiatives that were already underway when the restrictions came into place we are seeing some creative solutions to current testing needs although some technical considerations are leading to trade off decisions on what can and cannot be done. Mobile devices used for testing which can only be used internally on the office network being one example of something needing a decision.

    Finally we thought we would opt for a nice peaceful picture this week. We wish you the best in the current situation.

    Give us a call to continue the discussion. We have supplied Assessment, Coaching, Consulting Management and Training to Financial, Telecommunications, Utlities, NFP, and Government to name just a few.

    Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

  • Manager’s Conference

    Have you ever wanted to get together with other test managers and swap stories and solutions while getting advice from experts in the field?

    Some of the issues we will be discussing

    • Automation issues and management
    • Dispersed teams
    • Lack of Time
    • Lack of Testing Tools
    • Competing projects
    • Testing different types of projects
    • Testing with different SDLCs
    • Constant pressure from business and technology

    If any of these have occurred to you, please watch this space or give us a call to continue the discussion. 

    Covid-19 Concerns – This conference is currently planned for the fall of 2020 when we hope that all concerns are over.

    NVP has supplied Assessment, Coaching, Consulting Management and Training to Financial, Telecommunications, Utlities, NFP, and Government to name just a few

    Photo by Ari Spada on Unsplash

  • Scare Stories

    We have all heard them. We provide a small list here obtained from online media in the last few months.

    • Technical issue forces early closure on Toronto Stock Exchange as markets fall
    • Information about 69,000 Phoenix pay system victims sent in error
    • A company sent an Ohio man 55,000 copies of a letter
    • Federal IT systems at risk of ‘critical failure,’ (Canada)
    • Air Canada system failure at check-in kiosks strands hundreds; delays flights
    • Toronto is furious about Metrolinx’s claim that Presto cards rarely malfunction
    • Luxury resort overcharges customers by thousands, then ignores them

    This is only a small subset of what we have in the list and the oldest one in the list above is less than 2 months old. These are all within the first two months of 2020!

    A couple of questions come to mind:

    • How much did all the above errors cost (or might still cost in the future)?
    • How much of that cost could have been (or could be) avoided by proper application of QA principles?

    We all know defects and problems cost more the further into the process one has gone. Later defects (inside or outside software) are almost always more expensive. Some suggestions:

    1. Invest in a QA Assessment to see what you need in terms of QA. A good assessment will tell you what you need and a roadmap will tell you how to get there.
    2. Take the time to review the assessment and apply the appropriate improvements.
    3. Set up checkpoints to ensure that the process is not diverging from what was planned.
    4. Invest in coaching sessions to resolve any issues that arise (before they become a problem).

    Give us a call to continue the discussion. We have supplied Assessment, Coaching, Consulting Management and Training to Financial, Telecommunications, Utlities, NFP, and Government to name just a few

    Photo by Ari Spada on Unsplash

  • Resources

    Resources are one of the awkward issues in QA.

    • Do you go with a QA resource and hope to teach them the business?
    • Do you go with someone who knows the business and hope to teach them QA?
    • Does your resource require specialised technical knowledge (not directly related to a test tool)?
    • Does your resource require extensive knowledge of a specific Test Tool?
    • What about leading or managing the QA effort?
    • Do you wish you had someone who considered the long term impacts? This usually comes up after the project is over.

    What everyone wants is all of the above and that almost never occurs.

    Some other questions

    • Do you source internally or look outside?
    • Do you go with Full Time or a contractor?

    Given that many questions (without even considering location, compensation, security, diversity, legal requirements etc) what does one do?

    1. Invest in a QA Assessment to see what you need in terms of QA (before you start converting people into QA). A good assessment will tell you what you need and a roadmap will tell you how to get there.
    2. The internal personnel know the business: Turn them into QAs.
    3. Designate someone as a Test Lead and get them some external training to see what they need to do.
    4. Invest in coaching sessions to resolve any issues that arise (before they become a problem).

    Give us a call to continue the discussion. We have supplied Assessment, Coaching, Consulting Management and Training to Financial, Telecommunications, Utlities, NFP, and Government to name just a few

    Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash

  • Privacy

    Everyone has heard about Privacy concerns or the lack thereof for some organisations. As someone recently said (or actually many people) “You have already been hacked – it has just not been made public yet!”. Even small organisations with limited interaction and small accounts are being caught up in the Privacy concern. Recently a business acquaintance ended up with a large questionnaire requesting assurance that all data provided was kept secure and private. Efforts to fill out the questionnaire took a long time and probably outweighed the return from the business. Not sure whether it has been passed yet. When she considered all the places private data was stored, backed up or transmitted it was clear that there was a lot of work to do.

    Almost(!) no one likes dealing with privacy but no one likes a data breach.

    Take a look at our Privacy page and survey and see if this is you.

    Happy 2020’s

    Give us a call to continue the discussion.

    Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

  • Regulated Software

    Software that is used in regulated industries is becoming more prevalent. Whether you are a direct supplier to a regulated industry or somewhere a long way back in the chain, there is no escaping the gradual intrusion of regulation into software. The usual four groups that are mentioned are:

    1. Food
    2. Nuclear
    3. Medical
    4. Air Traffic and Air Craft Control

    Almost(!) no one likes regulation but when the software controls machines that can cause humans to be hurt, we certainly want it tested correctly and make sure it works.

    Sometimes it is the machines used in the industry; other times it is the parts that are supplied to the industry. Sometimes it is the inspection process that depends on software. Whatever it is there is a software component that needs to be addressed.

    If you feel this might be you now or in the future we invite you to take our survey and see whether that possibilty exists.

    Happy 2020’s

    Give us a call to continue the discussion.

    Photo by Proxyclick Visitor Management System on Unsplash

  • Quality Assurance and Artificial Intelligence

    In late December we heard two sides of the argument about Quality Assurance(QA) and Artificial Intelligence(AI).

    Side one from a Financial Executive: ‘AI will do away with the need for testing, testers, and QA’.

    Side two from a Quality Assurance Guru: ‘AI will mean more work than ever for QA.

    We tend to think it will be somewhere in the middle.

    1. AI will automate some tasks that are now done manually. We are already seeing this with some of the tools. This process has been ongoing for a long time.
    2. AI will change the way programming is done. As a recent article stated: Some of the programs were very simple; the data, however, was critical and every change in data lead to very different results.
    3. Following along with the point from above; AI wil allow us to do things in software that we could not have done before. This is already occurring.
    4. However, we will still have to test this to make sure we are using the right data and drawing the correct conclusions.

    QA is going to need to know how to understand, find, and load unbiased data.

    QA will need to understand and test how the conclusions are drawn, rather than what the actual results are at the time of test execution.

    This will impact everything we do from setup, to data provisioning, to execution and reporting. Test planning might escape the maelstorm but we would not bet on it.

    Happy 2020’s

    Give us a call to continue the discussion.

    Photo by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash

  • Quality Assurance 2020

    We received an interesting article last week from a friend about Technology Trends.

    The 10 Best Tech Products of the 2010s were listed. It was surprising how old some of them were. Some technology has been around a lot longer than was remembered!

    Of course, the 10 best had to be followed up with the worst failures. Only 5 of those, but they still resonate for the amount of money sunk into them and the scale of the failure in some cases.

    The next section was a prediction of the Five technologies for the next decade. A decade seems like a long time for some of these. We expect them to be mainstream within a year or two in some cases. Some are used already.

    They are:

    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Blockchain
    • Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR/VR)
    • Big Data
    • Internet of Things (IoT)

    So what is the impact on Software Testing? Some of these will be a huge challenge for those who are used to dealing with static inputs and static results. Most of these technologies will not work on that principle. The Test Environment will have to change also. We have already had test environments change in the last few years to accomodate many external feeds and applications. Now the test environment will have to expand further in order to accomodate inputs we don’t use now and also the volumes of data needed for the testing.

    So what is the impact on Quality Assurance (Process Improvement)? There may be an even bigger impact on how we work. In the past, we could retrieve some mistakes by adding items late in the process. That will no longer be possible with some of the technologies. Failure to consider all items at the beginning of a project could have much larger costs later on. We cannot afford that type of omission in 2020 and beyond.

    Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash