Long-Term Support and Collaboration

Every day you hear about companies wanting to run leaner, being first to market and reducing costs along the way but in no way damaging quality. I also consistently hear they can do that with the existing internal staff… now don’t you think that if the internal team had the ability, or appetite or skills they would be doing it already without having to be told…? Bringing in a consultancy acts in many beneficial ways, firstly it plugs any gaps in skills along with bolstering your existing skill set, it also helps to resource peaks in demand without increasing head count but most of all it brings in expertise and new ideas including better ways of tried and tested working.

Crafting an Agile Test Plan for the Euros

As with everything in life, we all need a plan. For example, the England Euro squad of 2016, you need to choose your best team, when you’ll leave for France, the training you will undertake and who will take that decisive winning penalty in the final (suggestion to Roy Hodgson - pick Vardy)… but plans change, so you need to be Agile and adaptable to change. This paper will explain how an Agile Test Plan fits within the life-cycle of a project.

Strategies for Attracting Top Talent

How hard can it be? Well hiring a Test Manager is simple - right? Well they all pretty much look the same, have the same key points on their CV and have all ticked 80% of the boxes for what you are looking for but that just complicates the process in reality.

The Benefits of Choosing the Right Test Management Tools

Many organisations have a variety and far ranging set of Test Management Tools like TFS, QC, Bugzilla, FrogBugz, IBM Rational and even the good old Excel spreadsheet makes an occasional appearance. All the tools (except Excel..) are used to store information on when, what and how much testing is to be done along with reporting on the outcome of test execution.

Is the Role of Test Manager Facing Extinction in Today's Agile World?

So by now, you would have realised that projects run using waterfall methodologies are from the Triassic period and Agile is the new kid on the block and here to stay (well for the next six months at least..). And, the traditional role of a Test Manager seems no more, almost extinct like the Tyrannosaurs. But wait, just because testers are working in collaboration with the project teams and reporting, estimating and planning directly with them doesn’t mean the Test Management role is dead as a Dodo, no far from it.

Essential Skills for Test Managers

This is the second in a series of posts on Test Management. If you haven’t had chance to read the first part, you can do so here.

So now you understand the importance of Test Management and the consequences of getting it wrong; but knowing what you should do is only half the story, what about the person who is the Test Manager? What are their qualities to execute good Test Management? This post will highlight the five key attributes of a Test Manager and give a flavour of what your organisation needs to look for when looking to employ personnel within the test management function.

Exploring the Benefits of Testing Consultancy

It wasn’t that long ago that the World Wide Web was invented, 1990 to be precise. Following that historic invention came the online retailers and online banks to much appreciation of those of us who are pressed for time or simply want to search the web for inspiration. Most high street banks and retailers now report that their online store or bank is their largest customer touch point and real focus on it being the best and most robust is very much in demand.

Identifying Common Themes in Scrum Testing

So I get to see lots of different organisations all trying to implement Scrum to varying levels, several themes come out:

Firstly, testers are sometimes excluded from certain activities/events or aren’t given an equal voice in the team. Sometimes they don’t understand that they have an equal voice that needs to be heard. The “Development Team” is supposed to be cross-functional which means that it should have testing or testers in it, don’t get me started on why we decided to call it the “Development” team.

Agile Test Strategy Part Three: A Definition and Explanation

Here's the final part in our mini-series on Agile Test Strategy. If you've missed the previous posts, we recommend you read part one and part two. 

So, you have employed a well-defined Agile Test Strategy and looked at the impact and risk of changes to be made for your project and of course you are testing just enough in the most effective way to prove the requirements have been met to a standard fit for purpose…Right?

Test, Test and Test Again

Here's the second in our series of bitesize blog articles on Agile Test Strategy. If you missed the first one, you can read it here. 

Now that you are ‘Ready’ to test, you want to test as often and effectively as you can; not only will this increase the chance that you'll find defects but will improve application quality. In the short-term your costs will increase as you’ll need to set up a defined framework and create re-usable test artefacts…