tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-123420432012-02-02T05:06:51.295+01:00Share, improve, learn, co-operate on topics related to software quality assurance.Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.comBlogger381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1159911676514549132006-10-03T23:40:00.000+02:002006-10-04T20:59:43.450+02:00

This overview helps project management and teams in selecting the best iterative method(s) for their projects, based on the major risks they want to tackle. The overview highlights the focus of the different methods, ie. which risks are mainly addressed. This is not a detailed course on all the methods, but references to literature are provided.During the last decade agile software development

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1155555214562158202006-08-14T13:12:00.000+02:002006-08-14T13:33:35.110+02:00

Pair programming is one of the more successfull technique from the agile movement. However it may require a cultural change in traditional software shops. Paying attention to explain the benefits and giving some guidance will help:General benefits:Produces better code coverage. By switching pairs, developers understand more of the system.Minimizes dependencies upon personnel.Results in a more

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com91tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1154636147708881952006-08-03T22:11:00.000+02:002006-08-03T22:16:33.700+02:00

Understand and communicate requirements that align yout IT prioritieswith your business needs.No process is more fundamental than the process of defining and managing business and technical requirements. It's no surprise that studies cite inaccurate, incomplete, and mismanaged requirements as the primary reason for project failure.The Requirements-engineering process consists of two major domains

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1147359410980474302006-05-11T16:51:00.000+02:002006-05-11T16:59:57.466+02:00

Diamondcluster did a study on the Global IT Outsourcing, here are the highlights:Top 3 Outsourcing Rationale1. Reduce or Control Cost2. Better Manage Variable Capacity Needs3. Free Up Internal Resources for more Critical PurposesTop 3 Key Selection Criteria1. Technology Expertise2. Cost3. Flexibility in Structuring Operating Model (offshore, onshore, ...)Top 3 Outsourcing Areas1. Application

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Frequent integrations with automatic build and test leads to significantly reduced integration problems and allows a team to develop cohesive software more rapidly. Since the first publication of Martin Fowler's article on Continuous Integration the method fastly gained popularity. In the latest version he focusses more on the best practices: Maintain a Single Source Repository. Automate the

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1145633849161120882006-04-21T17:32:00.000+02:002006-04-21T17:37:30.633+02:00

1) Start with working code and good tests or you are doomed.First make it work and have good unit tests to tell you so.2) Rest assured, you don't know where the problem isYour best guess as to what is making this program a pig is usually wrong. The only way to know is to run your code with a profiler and see which bits are the slow ones.3) There is always a long pole in the tent, but it is not

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1143836511163022782006-03-31T22:16:00.000+02:002006-03-31T22:21:51.853+02:00

Many of project issues are related to bad requirements management. One particularissue which is hard to tackle is the handling of late requirements.Coping with new requirements after the development has started often leads to problems in the project:schedule, cost and scope of the running project become unknowndelays due to unsufficient impact investigation, which may propagate to other projects

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1138721371124281642006-01-31T16:12:00.000+01:002006-01-31T16:54:50.080+01:00

An important process in software development is the making of the distribution.Here are some good practices: Make sure tarballs always unpack into a single new directory (not the current directory!).Include a README with: A brief description of the project. A pointer to the project website (if it has one). Notes on the developer's build environment and potential portability problems. A

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1137747035536348622006-01-20T09:33:00.000+01:002006-01-20T10:11:20.176+01:00

Are your use cases clear both for your users and for your developers ? Here are some tips:Be careful with UML diagrams. Only use them for a high level model to show relationships between actors and use cases. Use case descriptions are textualMain scenario 3-9 steps. Bird's eye viewNo IF-statements, but main scenario's plus extensionsBrainstorm on goal failures evaluate, eliminate, mergeManage

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1135803349502585292005-12-28T21:33:00.000+01:002005-12-29T16:19:52.546+01:00

Don't rely on proprietary code, languages, or libraries. Open-source developers don't trust code for which they can't review the source.Use GNU Autotools autoconf, autoheader, automake. Configuration choices should be made at compile time. People building from sources today expect to be able to type configure; make; make install and get a clean build. The software must be able to determine for

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1134427932682084542005-12-12T23:51:00.000+01:002005-12-29T16:33:28.173+01:00

Another set of rules from Eric Raymonds excellent "The Art of Unix Programming". Use textual data format instead of binary to store or transport your data:Easy for human beings to read, write, and edit without specialized tools.Easy to prepare test data and to debug.Future-proof your system. One specific reason is that ranges on numeric fields aren't implied by the format itself.Other tools and

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1133824509702126332005-12-05T23:59:00.000+01:002005-12-29T16:34:20.140+01:00

From Eric Raymond's "The Art of Unix Programming" i picked here the 17 rules described as the Basics of the Unix Philosophy. For me these are also rules for writing high quality software:Rule of Modularity: Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.Rule of Clarity: Clarity is better than cleverness.Rule of Composition: Design programs to be connected with other programs.Rule of Separation:

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1132523416202708902005-11-20T22:49:00.000+01:002005-12-05T23:58:29.780+01:00

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, and one of the most succesful corporate leaders ever, used Six Sigma as major Quality Improvement method. In his book Winning he writes:Six Sigma is one the biggest management innovations of the past 25 years. Six Sigma improves the development procedures, brings products faster to the market with less defects, and reduces cost. The biggest - but least

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1131915600276446652005-11-13T21:53:00.000+01:002005-11-13T22:01:06.776+01:00

Besides the low license cost, open source software often have other advantages that are more important:The right to modify the software: reach a detailed understanding of how the system works, unlimited tuning and improvement, easier to isolate bugs, extend the lifetime of an applicationredistrubite modifications and improvements, shared by large communities, attract new developers. large market

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1130932606692813502005-11-02T12:52:00.000+01:002005-11-02T12:56:46.706+01:00

The more people you add to a project, the lower your per-person productivity and the higher the defect rate.After fixing all the defects, the quality of the code written by the larger group will be much poorer, resulting in long-term increased maintenance costs.Since software spends the vast majority of its useful life in maintenance, getting the first version out faster at the expense of all

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1129533099919748202005-10-17T08:43:00.000+02:002005-10-17T09:11:39.936+02:00

How to deploy new processes ? Process approach, practitioners attention points, design principles for process documentation and success factors for deploying changes.Process Approach:1. end-to-end performance, with relation to customer requirements2. management of interfaces3. consideration of processes in terms of added value4. continual improvement of processes based on objective

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1128806045387106352005-10-08T23:11:00.000+02:002005-10-08T23:30:52.443+02:00

Three important hints to build more effective intranet websites:1.focus on how content helps people do their jobsbetter. Focus on specific tasks that people do. Isolate howintranet content can make these tasks faster and more efficient.2.become obsessive about metrics, about proving tomanagement that content does actually deliver value.3.keep your website lean and mean.Ideas taken from Gerry

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1128076246054900282005-09-30T12:22:00.000+02:002005-09-30T12:30:46.076+02:00

Five common mistakes that Linux IT managers make and tips to avoid the mistakes.Mistake #1: Reactive, not proactive have disaster plans in place rather than trying to implement a disaster plan on the fly (hardware failure, natural disaster, compromised systems,...) plans for the future in terms of capacity planning, upgrades, and support. Mistake #2: Failing to emphasize documentation and

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1127683002270307462005-09-25T23:14:00.000+02:002005-09-25T23:16:42.276+02:00

Differentiate Priority and Severity. The effect of a bug on the software does not automatically correlate with the priority for fixing it. A severe bug that crashes the software only once in a blue moon for 1% of the users is lower priority than a mishandled error condition resulting in the need to re-enter a portion of the input for every user every time.Therefore:Track priority and severity

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1126993380918814332005-09-17T23:37:00.000+02:002005-09-17T23:43:00.923+02:00

One of the bigger challenges in software engineering is keeping the complexity of the design under control. Two major techniques to reduce complexity are reducing coupling and increasing the cohesion of the software components/objects/methods.The Law of Demeter is a style rule for designing object-oriented systems. "Only talk to your immediate friends". The rule was discovered at Northeastern

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1126382916667350602005-09-10T21:59:00.000+02:002005-09-10T22:08:36.696+02:00

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) promises a number of benefits of which two stand out: reduced cost through reuse increased flexibility to adapt applications in order to meet changing business requirements Put simply, SOA is an architecture that enables the integration of multiple software services, creating applications and business processes that span multiple technologies and

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1125670242534498432005-09-02T15:57:00.000+02:002005-09-02T16:10:42.563+02:00

Rather than limiting test driven development to unit testing (driven by development), the test organisation can explore product launch related issues such as packaging, system configuration, upgrade procedures, and documentation at the beginning of the project.Keys in a test driven project management process:Team building drive project issues, even it means picking up another department's

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1125262742278924082005-08-28T22:45:00.000+02:002005-08-28T22:59:02.286+02:00

Achieve accountability through developer testing. Create thrust and establish a healthy relationship with your customers.Software quality is often measured by the number of bugs remaining in the product, as an instanteneous view on the state of the system (also called external quality).When software evolution is important we better talk about software health, look at the state of the software

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1124573259766210412005-08-20T23:21:00.000+02:002005-08-20T23:27:39.766+02:00

ISO/IEC 9126 provides a framework for the evaluation of software quality.It defines six software quality attributes, also called quality characteristics: Functionality: are the required functions available, including interoperabilithy and security Reliability: maturity, fault tolerance and recoverability Usability: how easy it is to understand, learn, operate the software system

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1124143833529512992005-08-15T23:59:00.000+02:002005-08-16T00:10:33.536+02:00

Scrum is a light weight management technique for iterative, incremental development. It produces a shippable set of functionality at the end of every iteration. Scrum is an agile process that controls the chaos of conflicting interests and needs, that improves communication and maximise co-operation, that helps in detecting and removing anything that gets in the way of developing and delivering

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1123366643006930732005-08-07T00:07:00.000+02:002005-08-07T00:17:23.013+02:00

How can you confidently determine wether the software you are considering is mature and business ready enough ?Deciding which software package to adopt inside an organisatiion can be a challenging task. Business Readiness Rating (BRR) is a new proposed standard to facilitate assessment and adoption of Open Source Software (OSS).The rating model weights the factors that have proven to be most

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1120864727991948132005-07-09T01:12:00.000+02:002005-07-09T01:25:39.606+02:00

Categorizing software development projects according to their complexity and uncertainty, you can adapt your process by adding practices according to each project's profile.Projects can be put in a four-quadrant graph similar to the Boston Consulting Group's Boston Matrix, using complexity and uncertainty as the two primary attributes that influence the type of process: Dogs: simple projects

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1120337519724985532005-07-02T21:35:00.000+02:002005-07-02T22:58:07.040+02:00

Test Driven Development has many advantages. Not only at unit test level, but also at functional, system and acceptance test levels which benefit from increased communication and collaboration.Test Driven Developement (TDD) is a widely accepted agile development practice. It forces the programmer to think about many aspects of each feature before coding. It result in a safety net of tests,

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1119705100742365332005-06-25T15:08:00.000+02:002005-06-25T23:01:30.860+02:00

The 10 QA traps mentioned in a previous post (10 Critical Quality Assurance Traps) had a major emphasis on test activities. However QA is much more than Quality Checking. Let's illustrate this with the results from the CHAOS report from the Standish Group.Software never comes in on-time or on-budget, and it always breaks down. Software development projects are in chaos.The Standish Group research

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1119040345628612982005-06-17T22:24:00.000+02:002005-06-17T22:32:25.636+02:00

From the Quality Techniques Newsletter QTN May 2005 Issue:Seems obvious but great companies with great products fall into these traps. 1. Unclear ownership of product quality. 2. No overall test program design or goals. 3. Non-existent or ill-defined test plans and cases. 4. Testing that focuses narrowly on functional cases. 5. No ad hoc, stress or boundary testing. 6. Use of inconsistent or

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1118433968439230062005-06-10T21:48:00.000+02:002005-06-10T22:07:35.616+02:00

How can you as a tester reduce the problems caused by inadequate requirements processes earlier on in the lifecycle ? Finding bugs earlier reduces the amount of rework for developers and allows the testers focus more on acceptance level testing.Failed tests and re-execution of tests often result from vague requirements. Here are a couple of quick-win strategies for improvements in the

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1117833556192279862005-06-03T23:06:00.000+02:002005-06-04T00:10:27.966+02:00

Eric Gamma interviewed by Bill Venners:Design Patterns help people learn object-oriented thinking: leverage polymorphism, design for composition, delegation, balance responsibilities, provide pluggable behavior. They help you where you need more flexibility, to encapsulate an abstraction, to make code less coupled, preserve layers, avoid up calls and circular dependencies.You only appreciate a

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1117398872243366782005-05-29T22:18:00.000+02:002005-06-09T20:18:56.246+02:00

Highlights from CrossTalk June 2005, Identifying Your Organisation's Best Practices.The desire to identify best practices is driven by business goals and objectives: customer satisfaction, reduced time to market, decreased cost, better product quality, minimized defects delivered, improved performance.The organisational strategy to achieve these goals are often centered on quick fix approaches,

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1116623490993982822005-05-20T23:04:00.000+02:002005-05-20T23:18:58.006+02:00

Good Software Architecture: is critically important for successful software development is the key framework for all technical decisions provides the foundation for reuse is essential for fast time-to-market solutions Too many projects either fail or require significant rework late in their schedules. Typically a project of 100.000 source lines of code can save about US$ 1 million by

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1116015068898169722005-05-13T21:42:00.000+02:002005-05-13T22:17:51.630+02:00

What is software testing ?According to Robert V. Binder [1]The design and implementation of a special kind of software system: one that exercises another software system with the intend of finding bugs. This system automatically applies and evaluates the tests.Manual testing, of course still plays a role. But testing is mainly about the development of an automated system to implement an

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1115401496522031022005-05-06T19:16:00.000+02:002005-05-07T22:33:36.326+02:00

From John D. McGregor's article on Secure Software in the Journal of Object Technology:Poorly written software will have more security vulnerabilities than well written software. Incorporate security as a quality consideration early in the development life cycle.McGraw’s trinity of trouble:[McGraw 04]Three problems that contribute to increasing security problems: Ubiquitous network

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1114899982840084302005-04-30T23:15:00.000+02:002005-05-04T19:54:20.690+02:00

A more recent contribution to the agile community is Lean Software Development, with focus on increasing delivery speed, producing high-quality software, and lowering production cost.Becoming 'lean' is a process of eliminating waste with the goal of creating value.'Waste' in software development: partially done work (inventory), excess processes, unneeded features, defects, rework, ..., all

Ronny De Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819141205670657642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12342043.post-1114545076411703312005-04-26T21:34:00.000+02:002005-04-26T22:25:08.546+02:00

Definitions of Quality:(IEEE 610.12-1990) Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology:"the degree to which a system. component, or process meets (1) specified requirements, and (2) customer or user needs or expectations"(ISO 9003-3-1991) Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001 to the Development, Supply and Maintenance of Software:"the totality of features and characteristics of a

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