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Packaged-Software Indigestion

Vendor reviews are a wonderful technique to taste before you swallow commercial, off-the-shelf software. They're also a great way to build a partnership with your business decision-makers on packaged-software projects, instead of being brought in late or left out completely. Here are some important things to consider when conducting a vendor review.

Eileen M. Strider
Web Load Test Planning

Predicting how a particular Web site will respond to a specific load is a real challenge. Here are three basic steps necessary to design highly realistic and accurate Web site load tests.

Alberto Savoia
Reporting Systems: Tracking the Details

If you're paying the bill for all the graphics, glitz, and applets, you're going to want to have some evidence that thousands of potential customers have actually seen your Web site. Here is a step-by-step recipe for testing system, network, and Internet reporting systems.

Len DiMaggio
Adventures in Automated Testing

Sometimes the best teacher is experience. Here's a look at four real-life projects, each with a different problem domain, testing approach, and test tool, and the lessons they offered in automatic test generation.

Pete TerMaat
Test Design: Developing Test Cases from Use Cases

A use case is a sequence of actions performed by a system, which combined together produce a result of value to a system user. Use cases describe the "process flows" through a system based on its actual likely use, so the test cases derived from use cases are most useful in uncovering defects in the process flows during real-world use of the system. Here is an example of how a use case is used to derive and prioritize test cases.

Ross Collard's picture Ross Collard
Application Integration

Building an integrated suite of applications can be complicated, especially when several groups are working on the project in different locations. Here are some risks, as well as recommendations for allowing planning, development, and testing artifacts to be shared between disparate groups.

Sam Guckenheimer
Untangling Communication

Software development involves sharing critical ideas in a hectic, high-pressure environment. If you want your team to excel in its software projects, it's important to understand the communication circuitry at work in your everyday interactions. Here's a look at the components of the communication process, and five common errors to avoid.

Dale Emery's picture Dale Emery
Lo-Fi GUI Design

This article takes you from “what happens before Lo-Fi Design” (understand the user) to storyboarding (with post-it notes), through final implementation. Other steps include window design (get out the scissors) and simulated execution. This thorough, step-by-step explanation of design method is supplemented with graphics and a usability sidebar.

Luke Hohmann
Building Productivity Through Measurement

Collecting and analyzing some simple measures on your application development project will provide a set of building blocks that can be used to manage your projects. This data will improve your success rate and reduce project development risk. Here are some simple measures that can improve your development efforts.

Randy Numbers
Requirements When the Field Isn't Green

Most advice on requirements gathering is targeted for brand-new "green-field" projects. What about evolving projects? Here's a seven-point strategy for those of us working on maintenance, updates, and legacy documentation.

Karl E. Wiegers

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