Software Test Management (STM)
Course Description
If you develop and implement an effective test strategy, you can successfully manage software test efforts. Successful test management requires the same approach as successful project management - develop a sound strategy, keep in close touch with the situation, identify and aggressively manage the critical issues and modify the strategy as needed, based on situational feedback. The "trick" to test management is knowing the components of an effective test strategy, including feedback mechanisms, and recognising the critical issues as they surface. This course provides the essential framework for successful test management. It focuses on a number of areas - the development and management of a successful testing organisation and team, the development of an effective test strategy, an understanding of the processes of testing and the recognition of issues and their origin.
The course is instructor-led with lecture presentations being supported by practical work allowing reinforcement of learning and enhancing the understanding process.
Target Student
The course is designed for test managers and software testers who intend to take up roles as test managers.
Prerequisites
A basic knowledge of software testing. The course is generic and not based on any software or hardware platform.
Performance-Based Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Understand the importance of management, leadership and team building.
Produce an effective and realistic test plan.
Monitor the status of testing activities and software products.
Make decisions regarding the use of metrics in the testing process.
Understand how to improve testing in a structured and incremental fashion.
Course Content
Testing & Quality
Reasons for not testing
Software quality, ISO 9126
Quality control and quality assurance
Why do we test
How do we test
When to start
Economics of test and failure
When to stop
What do we test against
What do we test with
Development processes (waterfall, incremental, RAD, Spiral, Sync and Stabilise, RUP, Agile
Levels of test (unit, integration, system, acceptance)
The testing process
Test strategy
The Test Organisation
People involved in testing
The test manager
Motivation and morale
Management style
Leadership guidelines
How to obtain buy-in
Team organisation, team size
Choosing staff
Test qualifications
Test Planning
Master test plan
Processes and documentation
Master test planning process
Contents of a test plan
Risk analysis
Test approach
Pass and fail criteria
Suspension and resumption criteria
Test deliverables
Estimating and Scheduling
Work breakdown structures
Estimating techniques
Probability in estimating
Test case estimation
Scheduling
Resource allocation
Progress control
Handling a late start
Test Design
Test techniques (functional, structural, static and dynamic analysis)
Equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, decision tables, state-transition diagrams
Exploratory testing
Mapping test cases to requirements, coverage
Test design specification
Test case and test procedure specification
Testing without requirements.
Test Automation
Why automate
Cost of automation
Return on investment
Tool issues
Tool selection
Open source tools
Execution Management
What is a defect
Test incident reports
Defect tracking and analysis
Test effectiveness
Requirements and code coverage
Defect measurement
When to stop testing
Predicting release dates
Reporting
Metrics
What metrics can do for you
Measurement issues and problems
Common metrics
Usability metrics
Maintainability, cost of finding and fixing defects
Test Process Improvement
What is process assessment
Capability maturity model (CMM)
Model for test process improvement
Test maturity matrix
Checkpoints