Are You Managing Testing or

“The Test Process”

Fiona CharlesSTPCon

October 27, 2011

Are You Managing Testing or “The Test Process” 2

Project management? 

OR

the trappings (rituals) of  project management?

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Are You Managing Testing or “The Test Process” 4

e‐commerce site SIT60+ interfaces, internal & 

external

20+ teams

Andersen, MS, IBM, LGS (+  customer)

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“We NEED to see               ‘The Plan’.”

Large Consultancy PM

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Morning meeting (daily)

Whiteboard daily plan for  exploratory test

Test building blocks in spreadsheet:   embedded calculations

Dynamic expected results

End‐of‐day email status

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Adaptation is the plan made  based on the information from 

the Daily Standup 

‐

Scrum Master training

Tweet by Claire Moss21‐Oct‐2011

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Testing and test  management

NOT

the standard documents and  processes of testing and TM.

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“Project managers don’t  want us to manage 

testing. They want us to  manage ‘the testing 

process’.”James Christie

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Why?

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MS Project plans 

Phase gate documentsMTP, Test Strategy, Test Plan(s), Test Cases, Scripts, 

Test Execution Plan, Test Status Reports, Test Exit  Report

Test management tools

Standardized metrics

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heavyweight

im impe imp impe ene??value??

inflexibleim

impeimpen

etrabl

e e

repetitiverepetitive

repetitive

repetitive

redundant

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Where did it all come  from?

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“In preparing for battle I  have always found that 

plans are useless, but  planning is indispensable.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Testing is fundamentally a  thinking and exploring 

process.

NOT

A document creation process.

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What do our stakeholders  need us to do?

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Testing

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Project management

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Management

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Management (more)

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Leadership

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What’s the best way— smartest and most cost‐

effective—to deliver what  our stakeholders need?

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Let’s take  testing back!

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Capture thinking

Guide

Inform

Demonstrate due diligence

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Are You Managing Testing or “The Test Process” 27

Are You Managing Testing or “The Test Process” 28

How much baggage do  we really need?

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Kung Fu Philosophy

©Marvell Comics

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©Marvell Comics

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©Marvell Comics

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Fiona Charlesfiona.charles@quality‐intelligence.com

www.quality‐intelligence.com

Images and text ©Fiona Charles 2011