1st TMMi
Workshop Proves
a Hit across All
Sectors
Ensuring Change
Control
Procedures Are
In Place
Experimentus
Collaborates
With World
Leading Software
Testing Experts
in Australia
Begin System
Test Design
during the
System Design
Stage Dates for your diary 1st
July 2009 -
Experimentus and
Micro Focus Hold
London Testing
Seminar 16th
-18th September
2009 -
Experimentus
Test Management
Tutorial at
Conquest 2009
15th October
2009
- Experimentus
to Present at
October 2009
UKSMA Conference 30th
November 2009
- Experimentus'
Agile Testing
Presentation at
EuroSTAR 2009
1st TMMi Workshop Proves a Hit across All Sectors
The impact of process improvements
throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) can have a major impact not
only on IT's capabilities to deliver, but also the knock on affect to the
business.
In a recent survey of CEOs and their
strategies to contain costs in the coming year, improving IT processes came top
of the list. As such, Experimentus responded with the development of a one day
London TMMi workshop. Providing a background and understanding about how to
deliver qualitative and quantitative process improvements using the TMMi model,
the workshop proved a huge success when it was held on 20th May at
the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall.
"No
matter how much preparation you put in, there's always a degree of trepidation
when you host something like this, but the response was excellent" said Geoff Thompson, Director of Experimentus. "Time, especially in
today's climate - is a precious commodity, as are available budgets for
attending events, so we put a lot of effort into developing a session which
would educate attendees of the tangible benefits associated with improving IT
Process efficiency, but also provided them with tools and techniques to go away
with and implement in-house."
When asked about the day, Eleanor Phipps, Leader - Global QA COE, Dun &
Bradstreetadded: "The
TMMi workshop was extremely useful as it gave me a clear understanding of how
TMMi works and can be used in an organisation to help identify and prioritise
improvements in the quality process and has given me plenty of food for thought
for the future."
Sarah Lightwood, Test Authority - HMRC Aspire
commented: "We came to the workshop with one view and left with a different
view, which has challenged our thoughts and direction we have been taking and
provided some excellent ideas for our software quality improvement process."
Change is inevitable and constant. After all, it’s what drives us as human beings, evolving and
adapting is what we do best as a species. When confronted with change, the human brain can calculate
masses of data instantly in order to assess impact, firing new instructions to the parts of our mind and
body that need to react or be aware.
It’s surprising then, that so many organisations face problems when changes are made to software
under development. With so many human brains and all that raw processing power, one would think
that change would come easily, except we all know it doesn’t. We constantly struggle to control and
fight against change, even when deep down we know it’s probably for the best. Why?
Communicate
The problem most organisations face is Communication. Ensuring that everybody involved
understands what a change is, what it means to the project and what it’s going to cost (not just in
monetary terms). Only once you have these three aspects working can you begin to ‘control’ change.
Common occurrences on projects range from Scope changes that fundamentally shift the delivery
objectives, to enforced regulatory changes, to minor wording, usability or aesthetic changes. Each
change will impact the project, so gathering all the available information on risk and impact, deciding
which changes to make and effectively communicating those decisions to the rest of the project team
and the stakeholders, is absolutely vital to ensure the best chance of success.
Use appropriate process
Having a formal change process in place can help prevent scope creep and maintain the quality of the
end product, but it’s important to ensure your process and procedures fit your needs. Longwinded
review and signoff
cycles for Change Requests often lead to teams bypassing or misusing the
process, but not seriously considering the impact of a change can mean rework has to be done later
once the true impact is seen.
Follow the process
Having a process that fits is only any good if you actually follow it. Baseline your requirements at a
relatively early stage (certainly before any high-level
designs are issued for signoff)
so that you can
control and monitor the flow of change through the project, even if at this stage, controlling the changes
themselves will be nigh-on
impossible. If your organisation is subject to high levels of enforced
change (e.g. regulatory) or minor cosmetic adjustments, build in the capability to react with a ‘fast-track’
element. Be aware though, that everyone needs to be invested in the change philosophy by
agreeing to quick turnarounds and you will have to be stern with those that want to place every
change through that route. Getting the raiser to document the deadline and the impact of not meeting
that deadline is a good way of sorting out the really important ones.
Assess the impact of a change
Get all the information you can in about how the change will
affect your project and the system, documenting any risks and issues the change might generate (were
it implemented or not). Ensure you seek impact from as many areas as you can – both on the project
and externally as
changes can be far more wide ranging than a well meaning Business Analyst
initially anticipates. It’s far easier to discard a “no impact” response than it is to field a “why didn’t
you tell us about this” one three weeks later! Ensure that for each change you get a Red, Amber,
Green (RAG) statement (for delivery, not priority) and an effort estimate from each area impacted as
this will feed your overall decision making process.
Empower individuals
Empower individuals to make decisions where the assessed impact of a change is low. The Project
(and or Release) Manager should be able to approve small changes without the need to wait for a
Change Board meeting which might be a week away. Conversely, large or complex changes must not
be the sole responsibility of any individual. The approval of higher risk changes should be decided on
a consultative basis with the involvement of as many stakeholders as possible, especially those in your
organisation with a strategic or organisation-wide
perspective, like Enterprise Architects and
Operations.
Document and communicate
Ensure that changes are communicated right across the project. Many
artefacts may need to be amended, depending where the change occurs. It is important to ensure that
traceability though documentation is maintained so that no conflicts or contradictions occur. Change
records should be living documents in themselves and include a list of impacted documents and
artefacts. Everything from the Budget, Project Plan, Requirements Specification and Test Approach
through Design and Code to Test Cases, Implementation Plans and User Guides might need to be
updated as the change ripples through your project and your organisation, and increasing the visibility
of those that have changed will benefit the team. Use of collaborative software such as SharePoint,
Drupal or Confluence to create a project space can help to engage, involve and inform team members
and stakeholders alike.
Know when and how to stop
Late changes are a major pain point on many projects. Some are
unavoidable, but many are entirely unnecessary. Setting a ‘Change Freeze’ is an important first step
and only ‘Showstoppers’ should be allowed to breech that freeze. This shouldn’t be confused with a
‘Code Freeze’ which exists at a lower change level normally
the few days before a system is
packaged up for migration. Setting a longer period before completion where only urgent changes are
considered allows delivery of the stated objectives with retained quality, and will allow team members
to effectively concentrate on delivering the final push rather than impacting and re-estimating.
Learn to say No
Saying no to a change can be difficult, especially where the customer might be demanding it. It’s all
too easy to sacrifice the quality of the product (and the social life and sanity of those working on it)
just to placate a stakeholder that may not appreciate all the work that needs to be done to “just display
the name” or “make it change colour” and the ripple effect it can have on areas like testing and
training. But being strong and pushing back on changes is actually in the best interests of all parties,
as it challenges the raiser to really think about the need for change and allows them (provided you’ve
got all the information from your impact assessment) to make an informed decision on whether to
affect the Cost, Time or Quality of the deliverable.
Implementing and sticking to a formal change control process is not an easy task, especially where
project teams are pressed for time. But convince your team and stakeholders that controlling change
will result in a better quality system being released into production; saving time and costs in the long
run, and you will quickly start to see a change culture developing in your organisation. Who knows,
some may even begin to embrace change (and as long as it’s justified and controlled, so can you!)
With the
focus heavily on process improvement, keynote speaker and Director of
Experimentus, Geoff Thompson, gave an uplifting presentation to fellow
international software testing experts at the ANZTB software testing forum
in Sydney on the 29th March 2009.
As
the regional body representing software testing professionals in Australia and
New Zealand, ANZTB offers sought after certification, dependable training
accreditation and career- enhancing support for software testing professionals
throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Geoff's speech examined
the benefits of software test process improvement, citing repeatability,
reusability and financial savings as key drivers. He also spoke about software
testing career development.
Martin Adcock, Managing
Director of Experimentus commented: "We're delighted that Geoff was requested to speak
at ANTZB. As a company, Experimentus are continually working to improve the
maturity, repeatability and understanding of software testing and quality across
the world and this has been another great opportunity to illustrate that we mean
what we say."
Begin System Test Design
during the System Design Stage
Adrian Howes, Experimentus Senior Consultant
explains why planning testing during the design stage is integral to a project's
success.
Beginning the testing process early saves money, time and heartbreak over the
lifetime of a project, regardless of what stage.
The model below, based on the V-model and W-model,
demonstrates the relationships between system design, test design and test
execution. Feedback from test design and planning is immediately available to
the system design process which is a sizeable benefit. Feedback positive or
negative, it doesn't matter; because it all helps to improve the quality of the
product or the process (or both) going forward.
Software testers should conduct early reviews at the requirements stage of
development because bringing anomalies to light here are about one hundred times
cheaper to correct than the same defects found in production, thus saving you
money.
Software testers should not be limited to testing software implementation but
should also test software design. This way, you will have scenarios and
scripts written before the code is delivered, saving time in test execution.
Use Metrics for tangible proof. When I have analysed projects in the
past, has been illuminating, not to say a little shocking, to discover just how
many defects were introduced during the system design phase and not picked up
until the system test execution phase. Having metrics from a previous
project - such as how many defects have been found where in the SDLC, at what
point they were introduced and when - available to you at the outset will enable
you to make a comparison of the old and new processes and thereby demonstrate
how effective the changes have been.
I am also constantly amazed by how many development organisations do not walk
through system designs with the test leads and system testers at least once.
It is a great way of finding many defects for a small investment of time.
Introduce change gently via a small project to minimise the degree of threat
or disruption. The benefits will soon become apparent and the change can be made
permanent and more widespread as needed.
1st
July 2009
-
Experimentus and
Micro Focus Hold
London Testing
Seminar
Geoff Thompson,
Experimentus Director, will be presenting at a half day seminar Implementing Testing Best Practice,
with Micro Focus.
Experimentus and Micro Focus will show delegates how
delivering improvements to your testing processes will bring about significant
increases in software quality together with considerable cost savings.
It has been recognised
that a major area for improvement within the Software Development Lifecycle
(SDLC) is how efficiently processes are managed. However, the challenge is
to make efficiency improvements while increasing the quality of the
deliverables, and in today's environment demonstrating cost savings and a quick
Return on Investment.
Delegates will go away with an appreciation of:
Why well planned and designed testing
services are not enough in today's
organisations and why
enterprise-wide repeatability is
critical
How to produce compliant test data up
to 95% of the time without
compromising quality and how this
can become repeatable across the
enterprise to rapidly enhance the
production of test data
How implementing TMMi (Testing Maturity
Model Integrated) and other best practices
can deliver significant cost savings
and improvements to their testing
An evaluation of different
organisations software quality
management process revealed by the
latest findings and research from
Experimentus
REGISTER NOW to reserve your place. We look forward to seeing you!
Geoff Thompson,
Experimentus Director will present an Essentials of Test Management tutorial at
Conquest 2009.The International Conference on Quality
Engineering in Software Technology (CONQUEST) will be held in Nuremberg, Germany
from 16 -18 September.
CONQUEST is
the platform for software professionals bringing together the software
engineering community to discuss software quality aspects, to see how quality
engineering methods and techniques are used in both industry and science, to see
the latest tools, to share experiences on projects and representative case
studies and to hear about newest advancements.
Experimentus
will join other software testing experts from industry and research from all
over the world.Further information about Conquest 2009
click here.
15th October 2009
- Experimentus to Present
at October 2009 UKSMA Conference
Brian Wells,
Experimentus Managing Consultant, will present at this year's UKSMA Conference
held on 15th October in Central London.
UKSMA is a non-profit organisation that exists only to promote and improve
the use of software measurement. The UK Software Metrics Association
Conference provides a platform to share experiences, ideas, case studies and
strategies for widening the relevance, appeal and benefit of measurement to the
management of software development and maintenance.
The theme of this
year's conference is
New Directions in Software Measurement, reflecting the
increasingly diverse nature of software measurement and changes in the software
development community.
Brian's
presentation will focus on
the benefits of process improvement and specifically the benefits that
can be obtained by reviewing and improving how we test using the TMMi model.
He will examine how measurement supports TMMi, how change and potential benefits
of change are identified. Brian will use specific case studies to
demonstrate how measurement was implemented and the data collateral used to
demonstrate realisation of these benefits and how this was very influential in
ensuring effective, long term change.
30 November 2009
- Experimentus' Agile
Testing Presentation at EuroSTAR 2009
Experimentus Managing Consultant,
Stevan Zivanovic will present at EuroSTAR on 30 November.
EuroSTAR is the premier international software testing conference in Europe,
attracting delegates and speakers from around the world. Last year in The Hague
over 1,000 attendees from 31 countries attended the conference.
Stevan's presentation will focus on
Agile Testing. Based on Experimentus' experience of delivering
successful testing services within Agile projects, this presentation identifies
10 actions that can be easily implemented to improve the quality of the end
solution.
This
presentation will take the audience on a journey through some of the common
problems with quality and testing within Agile projects. Stevan will
demonstrate how these problems can be prevented using 10 key practical tips that
the participants can take back to the work place and implement.
Topics such as development testing,
non-functional testing, environments, virtualisation, metrics and communication
will be covered.
