Archive for the ‘Quality Management’ Category

Software Testing Resolutions for 2012

It’s alwys amazing how every year the month of January sparks the desire in many people to reflect on past promises, challenges and successes. Once the moment has gone, a sense of clarity and a surge of determination takes root, and a new list of promises kick-starts a change and a passion to do well for the new year ahead.

Although this helps set about many good changes, trying to stick to these promises can sometimes prove quite a challenge! How many of you can relate to the the goal of, “I shall join the gym and get fit and healthy”? Unfortunately for some, by February this ambitious goal is broken and by March the very idea of keeping it is mere wishful thinking!

Although harmless if broken, what would happen if the promises you made effect your business? What if your company was sold promises such as:

Provide a code-free testing tool for QA.
Offer good customer support.
Ease the burden of application testing.

Now imagine what would happen if these promises were broken! The impact to your business would be quite damaging.

As a software vendor in the Application Quality Management space, we prefer to keep the promises we make to our customers. So on that note, Original Software would like to lay down a few promises this year that the testing community should also consider following.

2012 New Year’s Resolutions

I will focus on testing rather than scripting – why should a tester require programming skills. We believe that empowering your subject matter experts to define and execute sophisticated tests without the need to use any kind of code is the kind of promise that is worth keeping. So we promise to continue innovating our code-free solution in order to remove the burden of code-based script maintenance.
I will stop being the drag on Agile development teams – traditional test tools struggle to work in an Agile environment. This is mainly due to the fact that they were designed to work in a ‘test last’ environment whereas the agile model is more a ‘test first, test continuously’ model. Our promise is to support the Agile community with a solution that will provide a dynamic and efficient testing solution for your Agile projects.
I will not forget about the test data – regulatory compliance and data protection laws continue to have an ever greater impact upon the ways that companies do business. We want to make testing on live data a thing of the past and help you create subsets of data that retain their referential integrity, and provide a perfect miniature copy of your live environment.
I will stop insisting that BAs and end users should test manually – the UAT phase of your application delivery requires business process expertise in order to check that the application meets business expectations. This means relying on business users to test the new or upgraded system. We promise to supply a solution that is able to capture the business process knowledge from the lines of business.
I will stop pretending I can run a professional quality organisation on spread sheets and scraps of paper – it’s amazing how many companies still reply on spreadsheets and paper to manage the QA process. We promise to show you a way that enables you to unite all aspects of your quality lifecycle, across all stakeholders, from one central point.

If you have any Software Testing Resolutions for 2012 that you would like to share, we would love to hear them! Please feel free to comment back or tweet your resolution to @Origsoft.

Original Software Nominated for Innovation

Original Software is proud to announce that it has been recognised for its innovation in software testing. We are one of many nominees in the 10th annual Chicago Innovation Awards.

The Chicago Innovation Awards continues to shine a bright light on the creative spirit of Chicago. It focuses attention on the most significant new products and services, regardless of sector or industry, introduced in ‘The Windy City’ region.
Qualify, our Application Quality Management solution which was launched last year, is the new product that has been nominated. With our US office based in Chicago, it’s great to be part of such a local awards ceremony and we would like to thank the Original Software Community for nominating us.

Please spread the word so that others may join our revolution to show the software testing community that software quality can be achieved through innovative and easy-to-use technology.

Find out more at: Chicago Innovation Awards.

Please sign up to our RSS feed to find out the results of these awards in the near future. http://www.origsoft.com/blog/feed/rss/

In the meantime, if you would like to ask us any questions about our solutions and why they have been nominated for their innovation in test automation, you can get in touch here: http://www.origsoft.com/contact/

Software Testing Metrics and Compliance

Managers who are responsible for quality should implement processes and technology that will support their business objectives in a pragmatic and achievable way, without negatively impacting current projects.

Understanding the current project status, the trends in the progress and the implications for resources, target dates and costs are vital for making correct decisions. In today’s dynamic world, the information needs to be available instantly. If gathering status information across all the projects takes a week, the number of hours potentially burnt in the wrong activities could becomes alarming.

To help you to keep your finger on the pulse of your development lifecycle, you need instant access to key information via the most appropriate device. Printed reports should be at the bottom of the pile given that they are out of date the moment they are created, PCs and web access are better, and personal devices such as smart phones or Apple iPads at the top of the heap.

Qualify is our unique solution for Application Quality Management (AQM) providing real-time project visibility through customisable dashboards with drill down functionality for detailed analysis.
Full historical records are available for every project, modification and test performed, allowing for a complete audit trail and easing the burden of compliance. Status and performance metrics are instantly available to help meet SLAs.

This short video, focuses on the use of customisable dashboards for project metrics within our Qualify solution and it is a great way to see for yourself the power of a holistic approach to Application Quality Management.

You can watch a short video on software testing metrics here!

Tesco Bank Should Have Tested on IE9

The news on CIO’s website of Tesco Bank having to issue emergency guidelines for Internet Explorer 9 users, made me chuckle.

Either testing on multiple browsers wasn’t carried out in full or the testing technology being used didn’t support IE9. Either way, Tesco Bank will be entering our ‘Software Testing Hall of Shame’ this week.

Perhaps the bank wasn’t aware that Original Software had announced its support for IE9 back in March: Original Software in Pole Position to Support Internet Explorer 9.

With Original Software you can discover an easier way to ensure your web applications are tested on all browsers.

Podcast: Innovations in Software Testing

Our very own Colin Armitage, CEO at Original Software, took to the stage along with HP, IBM and Microsoft to discuss the latest trends and innovations in the world of software testing. Topics under discussion included manual testing, agile testing and how test automation can be improved. Listen to the podcast here.

The Battle for Quality in the Boardroom

How can today’s IT Leaders tackle the application quality challenges they face?

Today’s IT leaders have the responsibility to drive innovation and efficiency and help build smarter companies that will flourish despite intense global competition.

However, they also face the challenge of restricted budgets, aggressive timescales and the business wanting new technologies for competitive advantage. Not only does this increase the pressure associated with managing such high profile IT initiatives, there is also added risk if the technologies don’t perform as expected.

So how can today’s IT leaders meet the challenge of ensuring their department rapidly deliver business value and meet the requirements of users, without compromising quality?

We’d love for you to join George Wilson, COO at Original Software, as he explores how you can boost your ‘application quality eco-system’ to deliver greater business agility, a faster time to market, with reduced risk and decreased costs. Register today!

UK 2011 Census Not Written by Testers

Its Census time in the UK, an event that comes round once every 10 years, which requires every householder to ensure they collect a full set of personal data, or face a £1000 fine.

What has this got to do with testing? Well quite a lot really when you examine the ways that the questions have been crafted.

My favourite blogger, Tony Simms, offers a lighthearted and amusing write up for testing types and I thought I would share it with you all.

HMRC Software Glitch Makes Returns Taxing

Yesterday, January 31st, was the last chance for self-assessors to submit their tax return online at the website for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Even though the HMRC said only on Friday that their computer system was working well and they did not foresee the problems experienced in recent years, our majesty’s government failed to test thoroughly again!!

Apparently, accountants were having problems after it appeared that the company that supplies software which allows accountancy firms and advisors to access the HMRC website had shut its links early. Returns that should have taken no more than 10 minutes to file, were taking up to an hour. HMRC confirmed that some advisors using third party software were experiencing what they called a ‘slowdown’.

CCH Personal Tax was the software concerned and although its parent company, Wolters Kluwer, said they had not been notified of any issues with the software, problems certainly existed.

Now we can’t be sure what the problems really were, but this story is yet another example of poor or incomplete testing. Such high profile software glitches only go to justify Original Software’s mantra that “application quality must become a business imperative” – especially if government reputations are to remain unscathed.

Source: Yahoo News

HP Sprinting to Catch Up Again?

Isn’t it great when a huge technology vendor, such as HP, starts paying attention to its
more innovative and visionary competitors, in an attempt to play catch up?

We discovered this just the other day, when we saw that HP was plugging a ‘copy cat’
manual testing tool at this winter’s TestExpo, which takes place on Dec 7th in London,
UK. Ironically named HP Sprinter, the launch of the tool has been rather slow in coming
to market.

HP is claiming the following:

“HP Sprinter is a manual testing revolution. Fully integrated with HP Quality Center
version 11, HP Sprinter is an easy to use solution that delivers accurate and efficient
manual software testing. HP Sprinter dramatically reduces the time needed to perform
manual software tests and increases their accuracy and effectiveness. Manual tests are
launched from HP Quality Center into HP Sprinter where the tester carries out the test.
The actions and results of the test are recorded as a storyboard and results are passed
back to HP Quality Center.”

It’s reassuring for us to see HP taking its first baby steps in following Original Software
and sharing our vision of making manual testing more efficient and productive. However,
HP Sprinter is hardly a revolution, especially when you consider that you need Quality
Center installed to make any headway with your manual testing. Not exactly a cost-
effective or stand alone solution!

TestDrive-Assist is our Dynamic Manual Testing solution that was introduced over three
years ago and has since set the standard for advanced manual testing. You can use it on
its own or with any of our other products in our solution suite.

So, just like its entry into Test Data Management- HP is rather late to the party again! But
hey everyone is welcome, and in our minds, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

An AQM solution for Psion Teklogix

Psion Teklogix, the pioneer of rugged mobile computing, has utilised Original Software’s newly launched Application Quality Management (AQM) solution, Qualify, to enable significant time savings, process improvements and re-use of assets; accelerating innovation on ground-breaking new products and features.

Shahe Altounian, Manager for Product Support and Services at Psion, leads a team of Test and Business Analysts, in charge of validating Psion’s products before they are released to production. From testing for compliance to certain industry standards, through to validating that the beepers and software work as designed, he and his team were managing and planning the quality of their rugged handheld devices, using TestPlan, Original Software’s solution for test planning only, which has now been superseded by Qualify a complete AQM solution.

Shahe’s team were already happy customers and had enjoyed huge success in ensuring that their solutions were fit for purpose. But when he was approached by Original Software to try its new AQM solution, Qualify, they could immediately see the potential for benefits on a much larger scale.

Psion’s development process works like a classic ‘V Model’ and Qualify allows the integration of development with the testing team; visibly linking together both sides of the ‘V’ and allowing both teams full transparency of the project status.

Another feature that impressed Psion is the level of customisation that is possible. Each member of the team is able to have their own personalised view of the project and the elements and detail that they want to see, whatever is most important to them and their role.

Shahe said: “The biggest challenge for us has been about changing how people work. We’ve made a monumental leap in the way that people collaborate and work together on projects. We’ve gone from doing everything manually, with work spread out across documents, print-outs and spreadsheets, to having a centralised, business-aligned quality management solution that truly empowers team members. I’ve really enjoyed working with Qualify and it has been an enormous benefit to the business.”

If you would like to read more about Psion’s implementation of Qualify, visit our customer stories library here!

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