How to Manage Stakeholder Expectations 

It’s possible to keep your stakeholders happy, even if quality is not great, simply by managing their expectations from start to finish.

If I had to summarise this post in a few words, I’d say something like this:

1. Agree what the quality expectations are
2. Figure out what to do to make sure they are met
3. Agree how to measure whether they have been met
4. If not, let the right people know and recommend some ways to improve quality and fix the problem

The Essential Guide to Finding the Right DX Supplier

If your organisation is embarking on a digital transformation project, then you’ll need to consider the prospect of working with suppliers to help ease the journey. Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into every areas of a business, significantly changing how your company operates and delivers value to customers.

A Beginner's Guide to Regression Testing

OK, so I’ve decided to write something about regression testing, what it is, what it does, why and how do we do it. So as the song goes, “Let’s start at the very beginning”.

Digital Transformation Team Structure

Building a high performing team is never an easy undertaking. Building the test team for a digital transformation project is no different.

As with any project, when it comes to creating the test team, we need to start by considering the project and business needs. Depending on the project timing, it makes it easier if the test strategy has done this and is completed before the test team is built.

Aligning Testing Strategies with Digital Transformation Goals

Unless you’ve been hibernating for the past couple of years then you’ll be fully aware that digital transformation and artificial intelligence are at the top of every IT Directors list of things to do. Companies today are facing a couple of big challenges, staying ahead and on top of new digital technologies as well as providing outstanding customer experience. To be clear, digital transformation is the process of using new or modified business models, processes and customer expectations to meet changing business and market requirements by use of new and advanced technology.

Why Is Automated Security Testing Necessary?

IT teams and testers have been challenged by automated testing for decades now.  It seems to me that many organisations haven’t really cracked the nut yet with regards to functional automation and many (too many) automated testing efforts fail to meet their objectives, budget and stakeholders’ expectations. Expectations seem to be lower for load and performance testing. I’m not sure if this is because it’s perceived to be more difficult or the risk is perceived to be lower or both. Either way I don’t think that’s true, but that’s for another post. There isn’t much conversation happening yet about automated security testing - yet. I find this strange considering 47% of companies surveyed for this year’s World Quality Report said that enhancing security is part of their IT Strategy. The number of security breaches is increasing – the 2018 Cyber Security Breaches Survey shows 43% of businesses in the UK experienced a security breach in the past year.

Human-Robot Collaboration in the Workplace

We’ve all seen sci-fi movies where robots take over the world, that is until Will Smith (or similar) steps in at the eleventh hour and saves the day. But like a lot of movies made, they do have a good knack of portraying what the future might hold, whether that’ll be a home robot for doing the daily chores to an all singing all dancing fully autonomous home.

A How-To Guide For Test Planning

Test planning, it’s that task testers are often asked to perform at short notice and frequently without enough information. It’s something that sounds like it should be easy, but all too often turns into something more challenging. As testers, we also find that we sometimes become accountable based on a test plan that was formed in a hurry without enough information to begin with. Is there anything we can do to avoid this?

Emerging Tech and Quality Assurance: Key Trends for 2019

As another year starts, we can look ahead to what will be trending in 2019. We all know that ankle gracing trousers, wearing brogues without socks, growing a hipster beard (again) and heading to Greggs for a vegan sausage roll will all make the headlines, but with tech trends it’s a little different. A few years ago, we predicted Multi-Cloud (now commonly called Connected Cloud), Big Data (Data Analytics), AR and Cyber Security would be prominent, which to be fair they are still front runners for making the top five, but the way in which they are adopted and implemented has somewhat changed due to other factors that complicate but enhance the IT landscape.

What Are the Core Components of Usability Testing?

It goes without saying that all apps whether they be native, web or hybrid must make a great first impression on the end user when it comes to their functionality and usability. In the real world however, extensive testing and the usability of the app is often overlooked. Not only does this lead to apps that don’t really satisfy the needs of the target audience but sometimes means the app isn’t able to fulfil its purpose.