how a great qa team can make a disproportionate contribution to project success
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How a Great QA Team can make a Disproportionate Contribution to Project Success Paper Presented by Mark RylandTRANSCRIPT
‘How a Great QA Team can make a Disproportionate Contribution to Project Success’
Paper Presented by Mark Ryland
Presentation Contents1. Introduction
2. Project Lifecycle & Team Constituents
3. Team Dynamics
4. Typical QA
5. Great QA
Mark Ryland’s Credentials
• Close on 20 years large project delivery experience in Wholesale Financial Services
• Banks, exchanges and brokers
• Variety of systems types
• Projects from $10M to $150M
• All of these projects required QA testing
• Involved in building 2 offshore testing centres
• Schooled in QA testing best practise
Off-shore
On-shore
‘Location QA’ - ‘end to end’ testing with location specific downstream systems
user acceptance testing ( executed by user representatives)
Test execution ( system, regression, new functionality)
Maintenance of regression test cases
Test automation development
Con
sist
ent
Tes
t C
ases Con
sist
ent
Too
ls
Au
tom
ated
T
esti
ng
Wel
l Man
aged
E
nvi
ron
men
ts
Wel
l Man
aged
Tes
t E
xecu
tion
& R
epor
tin
g
Example Scope From Building QA Centre
Project Team v Lifecycle
Conception Initiation Development Test Implement
Project Sponsor
Project Manager
Business Analyst
Architect/Designer
Development Team
QA Team
Production Team
Team Dynamics
What Determines The Team’s Rate of Progress?
Pac
emak
er(s
)
‘Typical/Normal’ QA Experience
1. Doesn’t fully understand project objectives
2. Lacks detailed domain knowledge
3. Consumes lots of management & BA time
4. Is a bottleneck - test execution cycles take too long
5. Not flexible in dealing with unplanned change
6. Test coverage and quality is not good enough
7. QA team measure their success on how many test cases were executed (as
opposed to the value of them)
Attributes of a Great QA Team
1. The basics
2. Domain experts
3. Works out for itself what needs to be done
4. High calibre, motivated staff, stable team
5. Intelligent use of tools to speed up test execution/improve
6. Only raise genuine defects
7. A peer to other parts of the project team
Attributes of a Great QA Team Cont….
8. Energy and diligence
9. Flexible orientation of test effort
10. Responsive to changes in project priorities
11. Disciplined organisation of the test environment
12. Creative
13. Independent & Objective
Adds Up to Making a ‘Real’ Contribution to Quality & Hence Project Success
7. Test Case Quality
6. Test Process
Effectiveness
1. High Quality Staff
3. Level of Energy
Enthusiasm & Proactivity
4. Planning & Delivering Ability
2. Domain Knowledge
9. Bespoke Automation
Tools Available
8. Detailed Management of
Test Environment
5. Creativity & Flexibility in Problem
Solving
Measuring QA Team Effectiveness
Independence & Objectivity
Business Analyst Designer Devel –oper End
UsersBusiness Manager
1. Understanding of Requirement
2. Delivery of Solution
3A. Independent Measurement by
QA Team
3B. Independent Measurement by High Quality QA Team
Team Dynamics When the QA Team is Excellent
1. Developers try harder to get it right in the first place
2. Developers get rapid/timely feedback on what’s wrong
3. Developers are work harder to solve defects to keep the project on track
4. Project sponsors get clear visibility on quality level and progress
5. Project designers and analysts are have clear problem statements to work from
6. Have (justified) confidence in the system – that will feed through to the users
7. Fewer problems are going to found in live & hence the project will cost less
Conclusion
Gre
at Q
A T
eam
Questions & Answers
Thank You