testing

The people who are paying you to be a software developer are depending on you to know what you're doing. How can you instill in people confidence that you can deliver when you are unfamiliar with the required technology? In this week's column, Dave Hoover tells you how to build confidence by showing the people who rely on you that delivering software involves a learning process. Then allow them to watch you grow.

Many good business analysts have evolved into strong software project managers--a natural career move accelerated by the shortage of experienced software project managers. Unfortunately, no one seems to be stepping into the analysts' vacant ecological niche. In this week's column, Payson Hall warns that business analysis is becoming a lost art. And it's the software project team ecology that is suffering the most from this trend.

In a test and verification organization, it can be easy to fall into predictable ruts and miss finding important defects. Use the creativity of your test team, developers, users, and managers to find those hidden bugs before the software goes into production. Ted Rivera details how his organization administers, evaluates, and benefits from periodic malicious test days. Learn ways to make your days of planned chaos productive, valuable, and even fun. Give both testers and non-testers an opportunity to find inventive ways to break your products and you'll get some surprising results.

• The danger of too much predictability and the results you can expect from a malicious test day
• Create and administer your own malicious test day
• Maximize the benefits of malicious test days

Team building sessions: few like to attend those things. Yet, the benefits of teamwork are constantly praised and rewarded. Even this article praises teamwork, but does not suggest any touchy-feely exercises to bring test and development teammates closer together. Deborah Kablotsky specifically covers understanding each other and working together throughout a project's lifecycle, a proven way of working together to shorten test cycles and deliver high quality products on time. She also discusses the necessity of integrated teams and provides some proven tips successful to Web-based businesses on making this best practice a reality.