Articles

Ten Ways to Guarantee Project Failure

Naomi Karten specializes in helping companies succeed in their projects. In this column, however, she gives tongue-in-cheek advice on how to make a project fail. Read on to see if these steps to failure are part of your organization's modus operandi.

Naomi Karten's picture Naomi Karten
Keeping a Project Journal

If you think that keeping a journal is only for adolescent girls, read this week's column by Lee Copeland. Among other things, he suggests that a project journal helps you stay organized; teaches you what not to do next time; and makes it easier to explain what went wrong in a troubled project when you have to defend yourself. He also gives tips on being a good recorder.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
The Allocation of Testing Resources

How to allocate testing resources is a difficult issue. Sometimes it is hard to justify testing in projects, especially small ones. As quality control professionals, we know that testing is essential to guarantee product quality. This article shows a new approach to the testing methodology, which is applied at the organization I work for. The new approach intends to answer some of the questions in order to ensure that testing resources are appropriately allocated in a project. The main goals are to reduce testing costs, keep the product quality high, and anticipate the delivery date.

Antonio Cardoso
Taking a Risk

Project managers may be reluctant, even unwilling, to discuss problems that testers discover in a project. In this week’s column, management expert Johanna Rothman gives tips on how best to tell management that "the sky is falling," and how to respond if they don't want to hear about potential problems before they occur.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Can You Predict Danger?

Testers are in a position to see danger coming. Speaking up early about risks that others may not see can save a project. In this article Yogita Sahoo looks at the problem of NOT speaking up, and discusses the unique position of the test team in preventing failures.

Yogita Sahoo's picture Yogita Sahoo
How to Save Your Software Project

The software project gone awry is a familiar theme in columns and articles on this site. In this column, Elisabeth Hendrickson uses her knack for observation to draw relevant lessons from seventeenth-century naval history. Read her advice on how to save your project from sinking.

Elisabeth Hendrickson's picture Elisabeth Hendrickson
What Does It Cost to Fix a Defect?

We all have different attitudes and policies toward finding and fixing defects. The choice about whether and when to fix defects depends upon many factors, one of the least understood being the actual cost of fixing a defect. In this column, testing expert Johanna Rothman shares a formula for calculating the system test cost to fix defects and how to factor that into the bigger picture of your project.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
How to Preview User Satisfaction before Your Release

Why wait to discover how your users will react to your system when there are ways to measure such things during development? This column describes a simple tool to develop visibility into customer satisfaction. Learn how you can begin to manage expectations so that neither you nor the customer has an unpleasant surprise on release day.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
What Does Success Look Like?

How do you know when software is ready to release? This article discusses one piece of knowing when the software is ready to release—knowing what a successful release would look like.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
The Problem Isn't Always THE Problem

When things go awry, sometimes the first problem you see is not The Problem but just a product of its symptoms. But if problems can hide behind other problems, how can you learn to spot the true culprit at the source of your dilemma? Elisabeth Hendrickson shares some lessons she's learned about "The Problem."

Elisabeth Hendrickson's picture Elisabeth Hendrickson

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