Effective and cost-efficient validation strategy

The standard practice is to divide product testing into different levels like Unit, Integration, System and UAT. There is always a claim in all the organization that they have planned some of these tests and executed. What is surprising is everything in software terminology is evolving with time but these definition for levels of testing remains same even now! But what you can observe is the confusion on definition of an "unit" within the team. Can we look at differently the definition of level of testing which is acceptable to all with no confusion? How about coming up with defect types and define the quality levels where these defects types must be uncovered. HBT recommends 9 levels. This goal-centric approach to testing will also help us to organize test assets better and helps to demonstrate the adequacy of test assets. Overtime it will also help us to prioritize tests for execution in each cycle of testing, select right type of test for automation and determine the right competency required for execution of certain types of tests. All these focus finally leads to effective and cost-efficient validation strategy acceptable to any stakeholders.

Take a look at how personal test methodology HBT helps you here http://slidesha.re/HBT3of6

Intensely goal focused testing

I am sure some of the challenging questions Test Manager will face when things don't go well is - why did these defects escape our team testing? Do we have sufficient test cases to test our product? Why are we spending so much money on re-work and re-testing?

This is where I strongly recommend to re-look at how did we set the goal for testing team in a project. What did we learn from history? Can we predict upfront potential defect types which impacts customer rating on quality of our product? Is there something we can generate as defect catalog for our domain and check the completeness of test assets we have using this catalog as reference? By finding answers to these question you will land up in defining a very clear goal for testing.

It is important to realize that sharper the goal definition for all levels of testing higher is the return on investment (ROI) made in test engineering.

Take a look at how personal test methodology help you here http://slidesha.re/HBT-Solution-2of6

Understanding customer expectation

One of the toughest job is to clearly understand customer expectation. I feel it is a staged approach but getting the entry into the customer's organization is a major break through. This will happen only when customer realize that they are talking to the organization which has systematic way of extracting all their needs step-by-step. Credibility increases when customer see value added by organization in other engagements. During the journey it is important that delivery team delivers whatever they promise and also one should focus on sharing with customer what problems were observed at each key stage of engagement and how it got eliminated or reduced. That is one of the key factor for engagement health to strengthen over time.

In the validation space, starting from understanding customer products & existing test assets to deliver the clean software to production, we realize there are various existing problems one can focus and solve in the organization. Look for some information shared here as 1 of 6 series which I am planning to share.

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I appreciate comments and look forward to learn from community in the process.