Test Process improvement & how it should be crafted -

“Process is King!” said the British, and probably many others, and they were mostly right. We would like to be able to give a solid framework of processes, that is mixed and fit the people, operation, business environment and development model we use in Engineering in order to be able to use the resources available for us, in the right way – most efficient and effective way.

The trick is getting the right balance between process, quality and quickness and build an operation that fits the parameters mentioned before.

Working in agile, would mean differently than working in v model environments. That means the test processes must be different (and many other things like: evolutionary test design, the use of exploratory testing and other related tools and methods/techniques), the testing artifacts might change, the emphasis on reporting ANY defect or phenomena and how that adds value might be different, and so on.

If working in a v model, or regulated environment (medical, military, government, etc.), the test process would be different, and more emphasis would be given to a well-documented process. That needs to be factored in.

How do we support this -

We will typically evaluate the need based on the type of operational environment (regulated or not, etc.), perform a gap analysis to evaluate the current situation, present a report/presentation to major stakeholders, recommending areas and high level topics for improvement, and prioritize them for – effort and impact. For that we will use the TPI™ model as base, some elements of TMMi® maybe, our own experience one, or a mix – depending on the needs, size of operation, and business/engineering environment.

The next step would be to support and build an actionable work plan for improvement of the testing group, taking into account the business release requirements, as well as the benefit of changes to be introduced to support that.

After the plan is approved, we shall support a process of changing/defining/adjusting processes, tools, procedures, measurements. Each of those, after defined/changed, will be piloted to see the teams can use it in the most effective way, and only after that it will be documented (if necessary). Probably be adjusted on the way, thus fitting the methodology to the field best practices of the project/company.

Supporting the successful implementation of the improvement plan will be done right after, while evaluating the key success measurements, defined in the beginning.