Managing the Testing Process

Course #	EN04094
Date(s)	April 14-15, 2004
Times	8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Instructor(s)	Rex Black
Course Fee(s)	Register on or before March 17, 2004 $700.00 Register on or after March 17, 2004 $850.00 DIR Registration Fee $623.00
CEUs	1.6
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People who lead or manage development and maintenance test efforts.

General Description

Test managers must take a potentially infinite job testing a computer system and accomplish it within tight time and resource restraints. It's a tall order, but successful test managers have found proven ways to handle the challenges.

This course will give attendees the tools they need to succeed as test managers. This course will cover the essential tools, important techniques, critical processes, significant considerations, and fundamental management skills for people who lead or manage development and maintenance test efforts. The instructor, Rex Black, will describe the development and use of the test plan, the test system, the bug tracking database, and the test tracking spreadsheet. He will then cover the people skills needed to define your test team, hire the appropriate people, manage that teams relationships with peers and managers, and distribute test work to other participants. Finally, he will address the contextual issues of test projects, such as the economics of testing, the test effort within the project, hardware resource management, the test lab, and what test managers should know about testing hardware components.

The materials presented in the course follow Rex Blacks book, Managing the Testing Process, which is the distillation of over two decades of software, hardware, and systems experience.

Prerequisites

Each attendee should:

• Be familiar with the general concept of a software lifecycle (e.g., waterfall, spiral, evolutionary, etc.)
• Have experience with general project management tasks like estimating (WBS, schedule, and budget), planning, and personnel management.

Learning Objectives

A successful instructor/attendee/material interaction will allow the student to:

• Analyze quality risks, determine test project scope, and prepare a budget and schedule.
• Develop test plans and cases that address the important customer needs.
• Institute and use bug and test tracking systems that support effective test reporting.
• Prepare for and manage the challenges of test execution.
• Build and retain an effective, loyal test team.
• Work and communicate effectively with managers and peers, especially in terms of communicating test findings.
• Understand the test effort within the context of the larger project.

Session Plan Day One

1. Introductions, attendee objectives, and overview of test management

2. Defining your scope, schedule, and budget:

• Aligning testing in the organization
• Aligning testing with quality
• Testing real-world use and configurations
• Sources of information on risk
• Using risk to guide the areas and extent of testing

3. Exercise: Risk analysis

4. Thinking and communicating with test plans

• Developing test plans
• A test plan template
• Entry and exit criteria
• Test execution
• Planning risks for test plans
• Selling the plan

5. Testware engineering and architecture

• Test systems and test system design
• Test templates
• Test documentation precision and detail
• Traceability
• Test effectiveness
• Regression risk mitigation strategies
• Continuous improvement

6. Bug reporting Bug reporting and tracking

• The importance of good bug reports
• Ten steps to better bug reports
• Classification
• Bug lifecycles
• Bug triage
• Defect removal models

7. Exercise: Bug reporting

8. Bug reporting: Metrics and management

• Opened/closed chart
• Closure period
• Root cause Pareto chart
• Affected subsystem Pareto chart
• Defect detection percentage

Session Plan Day Two

1. Tracking test cases and suites

• A basic test tracking spreadsheet
• Test tracking process
• Extending the test tracking system
• Adding coverage traceability

2. Test metrics and management

• Management summaries
• Test hours progress
• Test case fulfillment
• Risk coverage
• Creating a project dashboard

3. Challenges of test execution

• Certainty versus progress
• Collaborative processes
• Result misinterpretation
• Holidays and cultures

4. Hiring and managing a test team

• Personality and skills
• Skills management
• Education and certification
• Organizing the team
• Hiring and interviewing
• Motivation
• Consultants and contractors

5. Politics of test management

• What is your job
• Where does the test team fit in
• Managing and communicating with your managers and peers
• Credibility and presentation

6. Testing context: Economics, lifecycles, processes

• Analyzing the return on the testing investment
• Testing within system development lifecycles
• Testing in other types of projects
• Process improvements and maturity

7. Exercise: Defending a budget

8. Glossary, bibliography, resources