keynote: what executives value in testing

K1 Keynote

10/2/2013 8:30:00 AM

"What Executives Value in

Testing"

Presented by:

Michael Kelly

Jeanette Thebeau

Brought to you by:

340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073

888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

Michael Kelly

DeveloperTown

A partner at DeveloperTown, a venture development firm, Michael Kelly spends most of his time working with teams to deliver ridiculously high quality solutions faster than they could without rigorous testing practices. Michael regularly writes and speaks about topics on software testing, and is a contributing author of two books, How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing and 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success.

Jeanette Thebeau

Ex2 Partners

Jeanette Thebeau is a veteran venture coach, product and brand strategist, and former CMO with a broad range of experience. Jeanette has worked with numerous startups, as well as large corporate brands—Brooks Sports, Disney, the Indiana Pacers, Coors Brewing Co., Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, among others.

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WHAT EXECUTIVES VALUE IN TESTING

Michael Kelly Jeanette Thebeau

The Executives…

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Founder: Build the product and prove the concept

CEO: Profitable, stable, managed growth

“Make the demo work.”

“…understand that the limited number of customers you have will not be very concerned if they run into a small bug here or there.”

“If figuring out design is more important than functionality […], testing falls to the wayside. ”

FOU

ND

ER

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Founders don’t hire testers.

“…more formalized testing with documented scripts, test plans, requirements etc. to comply with audit regulations of our customers.”

“Test driven development and continuous integration. Load testing, user experience testing, formal user feedback process.”

CEO

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“I didn't realize there's multiple testing activities.”

- President and CEO

“Some want their products to be tested well, some don't care that much.”

- Test Lab

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FIRE THEM ALL

REVIEW THIS TEST PLAN

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Valuing Testers…

Seed Stage developers do a lot of the testing

Growth Stage testers start to show up, focus on pain points

– still in alignment

Established organizational structure and disconnect from founders/executive leadership and business

problems – pathologies emerge

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“Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.”

- 37Signals’ book Rework

Where we have alignment

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What testers value

The Gaps…

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Most testers ignore (or loosely pay attention to) testing focused on controlling operations costs. Executives think this testing activity is important.

Executives largely don’t care about testing to ensure that they are compliant with regulations. Nearly half of testers feel this testing is critical.

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Executives want:

• fast and scalable

• solutions to business problems

• that don’t cost a lot to run or maintain

“All testing humanly possible on all components of our software suite. […] Keep

me in a job…”

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Bridging the gap…

Problem:

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what’s at stake:

Problem:

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shared language:

Opportunity:

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operations:

Opportunity:

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THE DARK SIDE

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Facilitator:

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Remember…

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Questions?