A new white paper by International Data Corporation (IDC), found existing software quality approaches at most companies are inadequate to address the internal and external costs of software defects. Sponsored by Coverity, the IDC white paper “Improving Software Quality to Drive Business Agility,” found that development organizations find major problems with their software even after quality assurance and spend significant amounts of effort and time to repair those defects. Depending on organizat… Continue

To coincide with the Early Bird Deadline of September 19th, EuroSTAR are giving YOU the chance to win a FREE conference place EuroSTAR 2008! Enter the competition today and you could be joining the EuroSTAR Team in The Hague this November for Europe’s premier software testing conference. Continue

I have just attended an incredibly interesting and challenging training day on the De Bono “Six Thinking Hats”. Although this was not to do with testing, I immediately imagined the possibilities for using this discipline in testing. So for once I am writing from a point of almost complete ignorance and with no real life experience of the method to drawn on. I will be interested to hear your thoughts. The Six Hats methodology is a framework that allows the user to compartmentalise their thinking… Continue

“Simon, tell me, what’s the point in testing software?”, said a colleague to me whilst we passed each other in the corridor at lunch today. “Presumably because someone wants to know something about the software”, said I. The reason for this colleagues question was because he was aware of a piece of product which was being released to customers without being tested by our test team. “If that’s there choice, then fair enough” thought I. Which brings me on to one of my annoyances with being a test… Continue

Some testers are more equal than others George Orwell wrote, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” and I have often asked “If all testers are equal why are some so darn useless?” What exactly should you look for when recruiting testers? What are the key behaviors and attitudes that indicate that you have found a good tester? The CV and other works of fiction. When recruiting for testers, the first hurdle is getting through the deluge of CV’s. A good… Continue