Project Management
Articles
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Slim Down Your Test Plan Documentation Test plans are essential for communicating intent and requirements for testing efforts, but excessive documentation creates confusion—or just goes unread. Try the 5W2H method. The name comes from the seven questions you ask: why, what, where, when, who, how, and how much. That's all you need to provide valuable feedback and develop a sufficient plan of action. |
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The Unspoken Requirement: Testing for Consistency It's easy to see that style consistency is important when discussing the user interface. But there are other areas where being consistent is just as important, even though they are not as visible. Consistency is one of the quality attributes of a product—any product—even if it is not stated clearly in the requirements documents, and testers have a responsibility to check for it. |
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Testing during Transition: Test Criteria for Outsourced Software In the world of IT outsourcing, it is not uncommon for a company to have its applications and infrastructure developed or maintained by others. As vendors compete for this business, a common trial is testing the transition activity as a whole. How would you design acceptance criteria of a transition trial so that it is testable and clearly communicated? |
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Test Coverage in the Age of Continuous Delivery Test coverage is a strategy to help us spend scarce testing time on the right priorities. When things were tested last, how much automation coverage we have, how often the customers use the feature, and how critical the feature is to application are all factors to consider. Here are some ideas for keeping quality high when you're transitioning to continuous delivery. |
Interviews
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How Leaders Can Help Software Teams Thrive: An Interview with Isabel Evans In this interview, Isabel Evans, a quality and testing consultant, talks about the traits most often seen in effective leaders. She details different leadership styles that work best in different situations, how you can learn to lead agile teams, and what leaders can learn from the animal kingdom. |
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Agile, Improv, and Learning How to Fail: An Interview with Jessie Shternshus
Podcast
In this interview, Jessie Shternshus, the owner and founder of The Improv Effect, explains the similarities between agile development and improvisation. She details how, in both cases, team members need to learn how to support each other, build on work, and be comfortable with failure. |
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Key Skills Modern Testers Need: An Interview with Janet Gregory In this interview, Janet Gregory, an agile testing coach and process consultant with DragonFire, explains what skills testers need to succeed in today's industry. She talks about how the testing role has changed, what communication skills testers need, and the importance of trying new things. |
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Creating IT and Testing Opportunities in Canada: An Interview with Denis Carignan
Video
In this interview, Denis Carignan, the president of the Professional Aboriginal Testing Organization, explains how his team is creating new opportunities and training in the software industry—from testing to IT—for indigenous Canadians. |
Better Software Magazine Articles
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Bridging the Bimodal Divide between Waterfall and Agile Most software developers are in either the agile or the waterfall camp. Agile is required to be competitive, but many enterprise processes still rely on waterfall practices for stability. They can coexist. |
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The Secrets of High-Performance Software Teams Of all issues that impact getting quality products out on time, the team should never focus on simply managing costs. To minimize the risk of perpetual product delivery delays, define what “done” really means. |
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You Get What You Tolerate We’ve all worked with a talented developer who can be a frustrating challenge to manage. First-time managers may unknowingly encourage bad behavior. There are several innovative ways to resolve the situation. |
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How Technology Is Changing the Way We Learn Modern technologies like virtual reality, cloud-based systems, and measurement of content have disrupted how we learn. Standards have evolved to improve how learning material can be published to any device. |
Conference Presentations
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Metrics to Assess Risk in DevOps
Slideshow
As software development becomes more value-focused, the need for a fluid production process emerges. That process is DevOps. However, when the number of release cycles rises, so does the risk of disruptive code entering the system and eroding the value that development creates. |
Bill Dickenson
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Is Your Project Doomed from the Start?
Slideshow
When we think of planning, we often think about requirements planning. We get the initial features and functions down, and then see where agile takes us. Lisa Calkins claims that less than a third of software development projects are successful. Regarding this lack of success, process... |
Lisa Calkins
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Guiding Cultural Adoption of Agile at Scale
Slideshow
Many approaches to implementing agile focus primarily on the adoption of common practices at the team level. While this focus on practices is important, recognizing that agile is a set of overarching values and principles is also important. Adopting agile “at scale” in organizations often... |
Ebenezer Ikonne
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Finding Efficiencies in Your Development Lifecycle
Slideshow
Many of us feel like we never have enough time to complete everything we want in a given sprint, cycle, or phase. Even though we can't add more hours to our day, we can add time by removing inefficiencies in our development lifecycle management approach. Melissa Tondi explores a number of... |
Melissa Tondi
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