Tech Articles

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> Evaluating Testing Software & Tools

Once a testing organization reaches a certain size, level of maturity, or workload the requirement to purchase / build testing software or aides becomes apparent. There are several classes of testing tools available today that make the testing process easier, more effective, and more productive. Choosing the appropriate tool to meet the testing organization's long-term and short-term goals can be a challenging and frustrating process. Following a few simple guidelines and applying a common-sense approach to software acquisition and implementation will lead to a successful implementation of the appropriate tool and a real return on investment (ROI). Read More

> Test Tools & Aids: Reviews, Test Management, Test Automation, & Defect Tracking

There are several classes of testing tools available today that make the testing process easier, more effective, and more productive. When properly implemented these tools can provide a test organization with substantial gains in testing efficiency. Test tools need to fit into the overall testing architecture and should be viewed as process enablers - not as the "answer". Test organizations will often look to tools to facilitate: Reviews, Test Management, Test Design, Test Automation, and Defect Tracking. It is quite common for a testing tool or family of tools to address one or more of these needs but for convenience they will be addressed from a functional perspective not a "package" perspective. Read More

> Test Deliverables: Test Plan, Test Case, Defect-Fault, and Status Report

There are core sets of test deliverables that are required for any testing phase: Test Plan, Test Case, Defect-Fault, and Status Report. When taken together this set of deliverables take the testing team from planning, to testing, through defect remediation and status reporting. This does not represent a definitive set of test deliverables but it will help any test organization begin the process of determining an appropriate set of deliverables. One common misconception is that these must be presented as a set of documents but there are toolsets / applications available that capture the content and intent of these deliverables without creating a document or set of documents. The goal is to capture the required content in a useful and consistent framework as concisely as possible. Read More

> Performance Testing, Load Testing, and Stress Testing
Performance Test and Load / Stress Test determine the ability of the application to perform while under load. During Stress/Load testing the tester attempts to stress or load an aspect of the system to the point of failure - the goal being to determine weak points in the system architecture. The tester identifies peak load conditions at which the program will fail to handle required processing loads within required time spans. During Performance testing the tester designs test case scenarios to determine if the system meets the stated performance criteria (i.e. A Login request shall be responded to in 1 second or less under a typical daily load of 1000 requests per minute.). In both cases the tester is trying to determine the capacity of the system under a known set of conditions. The same set of tools and testing techniques can be applied for both types of capacity testing - only the goal of the test changes. Read More

> Keyword Based Test Automaton
Keyword based test design and test automation is founded on the premise that the discrete functional business events that make up any application can be described using a short text description (Keyword) and associated parameter value pairs (arguments). For example, most applications require the user to login; the Keyword for this business event could be "Logon User" and the parameters could be "User Id" and "Password". Read More

> Requirements Based Functional Testing
Function (Integration) test is usually the first test phase that a test organization is responsible for during any given release. Requirements based Function Test is one approach to Function (Integration) test - it is a powerful and effective testing approach, which will significantly reduce the number of undetected defects (faults) being released into production. The premise is that a well-formulated set of functional requirements give the Test Designers (see "Testing and The Role of a Test Designer Tester") a definitive bases for test case design. Read More

> Testing & The Role of a Test Automation Engineer
The Role of the Test Automation Engineer (Test Engineer) is to: design, build, test, and deploy effective test automation solutions. To fulfill this role the Test Engineer applies appropriate automation technologies to meet the short and long term goals of the testing organization. The objective is to automate as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of code / scripts. The focus should be on test effort not testing coverage - if one manual test case or manual test preparation process consumes a large percentage of test resources then this manual process should be the first to be automated. Read More

> Testing & The Role of a Test Designer / Tester
The Role of the Test Designer / Tester is to design and document test cases, execute test cases, record test case results, document and track defects, and perform test coverage analysis. To fulfill this role the designer applies appropriate test analysis, test design, and coverage analysis methods as efficiently as possible while meeting the test organizations testing mandate. The objective is to obtain as much test coverage as possible with a minimum set of test cases. Read More

> Testing & The Role of a Test Lead / Manager
The Role of Test Lead / Manager is to effectively lead the testing team. To fulfill this role the Lead must understand the discipline of testing and how to effectively implement a testing process while fulfilling the traditional leadership roles of a manager. What does this mean? The manager must manage and implement or maintain an effective testing process. This involves creating a test infrastructure that supports robust communication and a cost effective testing framework. Read More

> Test Terminology (Test Glossary)
Testing Terminology can be somewhat ambiguous for both experienced testers and neophyte testers alike. The following set of definitions is by no means the industry standard and should be viewed as a guideline in forming an understanding of Testing Terminology. The terms used in this Glossary are organized by subject matter. Read More

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