Analysis

Conference Presentations

Software Code Inspection for Defect Prevention

Thousands of hours are spent testing, but most software professionals find that traditional testing simply isn't enough to ensure code quality. This presentation gives software professionals a complementary approach: software inspection. Learn how software inspection differs from traditional testing, and gain an understanding of principal inspection techniques.
Jasper Kamperman, Reasoning
How to Break Out of the Same Old Routine with Retrospectives

How many times have you finished testing on a release and said "Boy, I never want to go through one like that again." Or have you ever had a project canceled and said "If only I would have known at the beginning, what I know now, I would have done things a lot differently." Or when you finished testing on release one, said “next time I want to do it differently,” then said the same thing on releases two, three, and four? If any of these thoughts resonate with you, then I think you will be interested in the Lessons Learned process. Lessons Learned is a powerful post-mortem process that can be used at the end of a project, phase, or deliverable to evaluate how things went, and what could be improved.
Randy Slade, Kaiser Permanente Information Technology
Is Quality Negotiable? Experiences of an eXtreme Programming Tester

If you want a higher quality product in an eXtreme Programming (XP) project, you must be prepared to pay a higher price. We make decisions and compromises based on quality versus cost every day. Extreme programming teams are driven to do their best work, but customers have the right to specify and pay for only the level of quality they require. This presentation explores ways to resolve these two potentially conflicting points of view.
Lisa Crispin, BoldTech Systems
STARWEST 2001: Bug Hunting: Going on a Software Safari

This presentation is about bugs: where they hide, how you find them, and how you tell other people they exist so they can be fixed. Explore the habitats of the most common types of software bugs. Learn how to make bugs more likely to appear and discover ways to present information about the bugs you find to ensure they get fixed. Drawing on real-world examples of bug reports, Elisabeth Hendrickson reveals tips and techniques for capturing the wiliest and most squirmy critters crawling around in your software.
Elisabeth Hendrickson, Quality Tree Software
Managing the Test Effort Using Requirements-Based Testing Metrics

It's difficult to quantify the true state of a test effort. Often, it's measured by quantity of work combined with deadline compliance. But if this is the case, then the true level of quality remains unknown. The Requirements-Based Testing (RBT) process offers a set of metrics that can be utilized throughout the development cycle. These metrics can provide an accurate picture of the test effort at any given time.
Gary Mogyorodi, Bit Inc.
STAREAST 2001: The Power of Retrospectives to Improve Testing

Testing is a tough job! Most test professionals learn the hard way what works and what doesn't. Retrospectives are focused, facilitated reviews of a defined piece of work. Learn how software project retrospectives are used as a test process improvement technique to capture the essence of a work, provide closure, and establish a springboard for active improvement in an organization.
Esther Derby, Esther Derby Associates, Inc
A Common Sense Approach to Statistical Process Control

As maturing software organizations begin using statistical process control (SPC) techniques to stabilize processes and manage quality, it's imperative that their SPC implementation approach be carefully considered, especially since it involves the use of statistical analysis techniques that are unfamiliar to most people. This presentation describes an approach to implementing SPC that maximizes project personnel involvement through creative delegation, provides for the timely utilization of the data, and keeps management well informed but not overburdened.
Steven H. Lett, The David Consulting Group
Problem Resolution Cycle Time Optimization

No matter how well we plan and execute software development, defects are generated and can escape to the customers. Failure to quickly resolve software problems leads to negative consequences for our customers and increases internal business costs. A quick deterministic
method to prioritize problems and implement their solution helps to reduce cycle time and costs. Achieving this goal requires several steps. The first is to determine a model that links problem resolution performance to institutional variables and problem characteristics. Statistical Design of Experiments (DOE) is a tool that provides data requirements for estimating the impacts of these variables on problem resolution. Once data has been gathered the results of statistical analysis can be input into a mathematical optimization model to guide the organization.
This paper describes such an analysis.
Don Porter, Motorola
Predictive Metrics to Estimate Post Project Costs

How much will it cost to support your software project based on current estimations? Discover the answer to this question by using statistical estimation methods-including the S-curve and the Rayleigh curve-to help you determine where your projects are in relation to required quality and trendings to meet your post-project cost goals. Learn how to use metrics to predict post-project costs and make better release decisions based on these predictions.
Geoffrey Facer, Intel Corporation
Metrics: Giving the Answer to the Right Question

What metrics are you going to give me? This is the type of question managers ask their QA analysts at the start of each project. In this presentation, learn how to interpret data to create a metric that can answer a specific question asked by management. Explore how quality assurance and testing-from goal setting to implementing tactics-can assist in creating reliable metrics. Kenneth Paczas looks at many of the questions that have been asked by management--and the metrics that were used to answer them.
Kenneth Paczas, Compuware Corporation

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