NVP Software Solutions

Tag: Process Improvement

  • Selling QA

    In the last couple of blogs we talked about Early Involvement and the ROI of Quality Assurance. A list of a few places where Quality Assurance pays was also provided.

    However, Selling Quality Assurance can still be a challenge.

      • Some organisations see the benefit and buy in to the concept permanently.
      • Others never make the move towards a Quality Culture and cannot see the need.
      • The most common scenario is a cyclical one:

    Someone in an organisation embraces Quality and either are in the correct position to make it happen or have great timing where there has been a move towards Quality Assurance and it just needed someone
    to ‘ride the wave’ to completion.

    • There is, of couse, always the last scenario where there has been a crisis and everyone comes to the conclusion “If we only had had Quality Assurance the ‘problem/crisis/disaster’ would never have occurred”.

    Be very careful of the last one; it is not likely a deep commitment. Once the crisis is over, there will be a reversion to the earlier behaviour. It is very tempting to go to an organisation that has just had a crisis and try to convince them to change but it is not likely to occur and will be a struggle.

    So, how do we sell QA:

    1. We need to know the state of the organisation. Is there an underlying need or wish; or just a superficial desire?
    2. Who are the decision makers and what do they want?
    3. Where can be we get a reasonable return in a short period – we have to show something fairly quickly.

    Remember a culture change takes years. We need a set of successes that are directly attributable to Quality Assurance to start making the case for the wholesale introduction and embedding of the concept.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Quality Assurance is exceedingly Cost-Efficient.

    Contact us for further information.

  • June Events in Software Testing in the GTA and beyond

     

    NVP Software Solutions will be participating in the following software testing and quality assurance events happening this June 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 ROI

    One of the items which comes up in most Quality Assurance discussions is the determination of what Return on Investment Quality Assurance provides. It can be hard to justify and obviously depends on the Costing Model used in your organisation. The factors in the Costing Model may differ but the overall trend is always the same. Early Quality Assurance (see last blog) alway pays.

    Here are some of the places where and how Quality Assurance pays:

    1. An error found at Requirements time will be much cheaper to fix there rather than later in the lifecycle. Estimates range from 10% of the later cost down to far less than 0.1% for even moderately complex systems.
    2. Similarly an error found at Design time has a ratio that is slightly less than Requirements but still substantial.
    3. Inclusion of Quality Assurance at an early stage will lead to root cause analysis of repeated errors saving thousands of dollars in testing and repetition of test cases.
    4. Inclusion of Quality Assurance at an early stage allows the definition and construction of an environment suitable for testing when the code becomes available. Environments may be able to be shared leading to cost savings or, at the very least, they can be designed with all the testing considerations included up front.

    The above are only a few of the places where Quality Assurance can save many thousands of dollars on the project. There are many more which could be defined and calculated.
    Our next blog will look at how Quality Assurance can provide valuable input and how that is made clear to the users.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Quality Assurance is exceedingly Cost-Efficient.

    Contact us for further information.

  • Early Involvement of Quality Assurance

    One of the items which comes up in most Quality Assurance discussions is the determination of when to involve Quality Assurance in the project. Those with the traditional view of Quality Assurance as simply Software Testing (Quality Control) delay the arrival of the Qaulity Assurance Professional until the last possible moment and are then disappointed when the testing is not done correctly or with due regard for risk. People (including some Quality Assurance personnel) believe there is nothing to be done until the software is ready and ‘complete’.

    These people are missing the value that can be contributed by Quality Assurance early in the project including the following:

    1. Assessment of Risk from a Quality Assurance point of view.
    2. Review of Requirements and Design from a Quality Assurance point of view.
    3. Proper design of the test environment and the processes surrounding it.
    4. Proper and complete design of the testcases that address the most important risks while minimising the efforts.
    5. The chance to have feedback from other project members over the course of the test design and preparation.

    Of the above items the last is probably the most important. Feedback can help find and correct deficiencies earlier rather than later.

    Our next two blogs will provide concrete examples of how and where Quality Assurance can provide valuable input.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Design review is very cost-effective.

    Contact us for further information.

  • Review Design (by Reviewing)

    The title of this Blog may be considered to be a self-evident truth. How else would you review a design except by reviewing it? There are other ways which we will get to in a couple of weeks. However, our initial look will be by the standard method of reviewing them and what a Quality Assurance person might get out of the review.

    Reviewing a design can be difficult for some people. The following problems may arise:

    • You don’t know anything about the technical solution
    • The design is very technical
    • It is difficult to maintain concentration for an extended period of time

    There are ways around these problems. Some of them are personal and some relate to the methodology used to review the requirements.

    On the personal level:

    • Familiarise yourself with the system for which the design is being created. It will help! You cannot review in a vacuum.
    • Organise the design into sections so you can concentrate on a particular section at once.
    • Ask for a System Boundary Diagram (SBD).

    We emphasized one item above. The System Boundary Diagram can be created at many levels but the common idea is that it shows the system in a pictorial form and identifies the interfaces to external systems. The act of creating an SBD brings many problems to the surface and allows the Scope of testing to be set.

    Once you have completed your personnel review, you may be asked to join a group review bringing in your comments and hearing from everyone else. There are several methods of review depending on Risk including Desk Checking, Walkthroughs, Reviews, and finally Inspections. These vary from informal to very formal. However, they are all aimed at finding the errors in the design sooner rather than later. They also all assume on previous individual work.

    For a different way to review the design, look for our next blog on this topic.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Design review is very cost-effective.

    Contact us for further information.

  • Review Requirements (by Writing Testcases)

    This is the second in the series about reviewing requirements. This week we are considering the method of using Testcases to review the requirements. Some people would feel that this is too early in the process to be considering testcases but we do not have to write complete testcases. Test conditions or objectives will be enough at the start and the payback is substantial.

    As we mentioned in the last blog, reviewing requirements can be surprisingly difficult for some people. The following problems may arise:

    • You don’t know anything about the system under review
    • The requirements are disorganised
    • It is difficult to maintain concentration for an extended period of time

    The act of writing testcases (conditions or objectives) and attaching them to the requirement for which they were written (Traceability) has the impact of clarifying thoughts on what the requirement really means. Most requirements generate multiple testcases. In order to write even the start of the testcases, we need to be able to decompose the requirement into its component parts and understand each one. The process of doing this will highlight the deficiencies in the requirements.

    1. If our test conditions contradict each other then the requirements are probably inconsistent.
    2. If our test conditions don’t seem to cover everything, then the requirements are probably incomplete.
    3. If our test conditions expect to test items that are clearly wrong then the underlying requirements are probably wrong.
    4. If our test conditions seem unclear when completed, then the requirements are probably just as unclear.
    5. We could draw other conclusions but these are the main ones for requirements.

    The process here is used to clarify the thought processes.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Requirements review is very cost-effective.

    Contact us for further information.

  • Review Requirements (by Reviewing)

    The title of this Blog may be considered to be a self-evident truth. How else would you review a set of requirements except by reviewing them? There are other ways which we will get to in a couple of weeks. However, our initial look will be by the standard method of reviewing them.

    Reviewing requirements can be surprisingly difficult for some people. The following problems may arise:

    • You don’t know anything about the system under review
    • The requirements are disorganised
    • It is difficult to maintain concentration for an extended period of time

    There are ways around these problems. Some of them are personal and some relate to the methodology used to review the requirements.

    On the personal level:

    • Familiarise yourself with the system for which the requirements are being created. You cannot review in a vacuum.
    • Organise the requirements by tagging them according to the type and what they discuss. (It would be preferable if everyone used the same organisation but there is no guarantee of that occurring.)
    • Break up the review into sections

    Once you have completed your personnel review, you may be asked to join a group review bringing in your comments and hearing from everyone else. There are several methods of review depending on Risk including Desk Checking, Walkthroughs, Reviews, and finally Inspections. These vary from informal to very formal. However, they are all aimed at finding the errors in the requirements sooner rather than later. They also all assume on previous individual work.

    For a different way to review requirements, look for our next blog on this topic.

    Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to your situation. Requirements review is very cost-effective.

    Contact us for further information.

  • Quality Assurance for Contracted Software

    Quality Assurance for Contracted Software is a little different from our last two blogs on somewhat similar topics (Downloaded and Contracts). Obviously there is overlap with the QA for Contracts but here we are assuming that, rather than contracting for an already built product that might be modified for our use, we are specifying exactly what will be built. We are contracting out the development (and maybe testing) of something where we know exactly what we want.

    One would think that this would be a great opportunity to put Quality Assurance requirements into the contract and provide exact criteria for what will be received. The problem is that people have trouble specifying quality. Ask a group (I have) for a definition of Quality and you will get as many answers as there are group members (maybe more).

    The following are pretty common answers:

      1. The product shall be Fit for Use. By whom and with what training not being defined
      2. The product will adhere to the Requirements as stated. Quality Requirements not always being well defined or defined at all

    And the same three from our last similar blog

    1. The product shall be of a Quality nature. Quality nature not being defined
    2. Testing will be completed. By whom and when, how or where is not considered
    3. Test results will be supplied. Format, detail, and how left to the discretion of the supplier

    it is worth some time to put Quality Requirements into a Contract for Software. The time taken to add the clauses is minimal. The payback is huge.

    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.