Eileen Strider

Tackling communication issues at the start can set a project up for success. Staying alert to communication issues during a project means keeping the lines open, clear, accurate, and helpful. Then when the deadline approaches, the schedule slips, or serious problems start cropping up, issues can be confronted much more smoothly and efficiently. In this column, Eileen discusses how human communication affects projects from start to finish.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. But if you keep trying the same things that worked for you in the past, and they're not working for you now, you might never succeed. In this column, Eileen Strider shows you how to tap new sources for fresh approaches to tackling problems.

We have the potential in our professions to encounter unethical and illegal uses of technology and data. In this column, Eileen Strider describes a situation in which you suspect a dishonest use of information in a system you're testing. What do you do?

Market analysts say the economy is recovering from the recession. But it seems that every day we read about another company laying off workers and the tough IT job market. All this has Eileen Strider wondering, in this week's column, how you are faring and what kind of support you are both giving and receiving during these tough times.

Most of us want to be helpful. It's satisfying knowing that we've been able to solve a problem for another person. But what about those times when the other person doesn't really want our help? In this column, Eileen Strider shows how to offer "healthy" assistance, without giving in to the sickly variety.

Technical people often feel uncomfortable sharing their personal feelings toward a project. But there are recognized levels of information beneath the surface of what we hear and see. Here, Eileen Strider explains that even without plumbing the depths of your co-workers' souls, you can conduct a little subsurface exploration to benefit the team and the project.

Churning out medium-grade software to meet deadlines, and experiencing critically defective projects over the years, can easily wear down optimism till it gives way to cynicism in the software testing and quality professions. In this column, Eileen Strider empathizes with that tendency and offers ideas that may improve the quality of your experience.

The correlation between project size and project failure is well known in the software industry. Despite this well documented danger, companies continue to sponsor huge projects. It's unlikely we will talk executives out of their dreams of huge projects, but we can talk with them about ways to manage the inherent risks. Often a short story is worth a thousand words. The "Hudson's Bay Start" is one of these stories and a great risk reduction technique.

It's easy to be frustrated by lack of executive management support for QA. Often it's difficult to get the backing we need to really operate effectively. But somewhere beyond cynicism lies a world of possibilities, and exploring them can help you articulate your needs. What would you ask for if you could?

It's amazing how many projects, already in a hole, keep sinking deeper. When team members and staff don't have the insight or objectivity to turn things around, an independent consultant can help—or not. In this column, a leading industry consultant gives you "the straight dope" on what to watch out for.

Software projects are filled with productivity needs and deadline pressures. As a project manager, you may feel responsible for project deliverables yet highly dependent on others to complete their work. It's common to push, prod, and heavy-handedly coerce your team to go faster. Sometimes this has the desired effect. And even if it doesn't, you can at least claim you pushed as hard as you could. But is that really all that can be done? Eileen Strider suggests another tool at your disposal.