I thought i might be fun to toss out an idea that might be a bit over stated and see what others though. From what I'm seeing the test lab with dedicated hardware is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. With the access to virtualization in the cloud and Virtual Private Clouds connected to corporate networks, why buy any test equipment. Rent VMs for testing. With VMs in the cloud you don't have to worry about who's using which machine for what te... [read more]

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Molly Mahai: I don't have the answer to this, but I think there are things to consider, such as: what does it cost to hook up/establish that infrastructure? What kind of control do you have in your cloud? How does that represent the production environment? What s... [read more]

RKJohnston: Hey Brad, if i hadn't seen it was you posting I would have thought you were serious. I'm doing my talk on Testing the Client and the Cloud tomorrow. A big theme will be Testing in Production (TiP). Should be good. Molly, you are right, there are cost... [read more]

Brad Johnson: Ken, My sarcasm needs qualifying, sometimes. I am very serious about how the cloud provides unprecedented possibilities and highlights shortcomings of previous approaches. GREAT that you're covering TiP (and I love the acronym). Cloud has enabled com... [read more]

I have always thought that testing was a piece of quality assurance, rather than interchangeably used. However, as all of you have experienced (I am sure), organizations confuse the terms all the time - the test group is often called the QA team. It is not a matter of semantics - it is important to realize the differences and how it affects your orgranization. What have been your experiences with this? How do you compare these? Where does Quality... [read more]

Molly Mahai: I agree that the terms are interchanged and I am amazed that some organizations are reluctant to embrace QA. I am still baffled by this since it's much less costly to prevent defects than to fix them. I have run into situations where I have encourage... [read more]

Paul Trompeter: I am glad progress isbeing made for you and your organization. My dimlemma is that what you stated about your org's attititude is one I have faced in several orgs since the 70's. And the - that is not your job (as ewell as the that is not my job) - s... [read more]

Hi all, Subject asks it all. I am told at some point I will be given a chance (and promotion) to a QA Manager role. I am currently a QA Engineer. As such, I was wondering what steps I can take now in order to properly prepare for the QA Manager role. As I understand it, the Manager role will involve supervision of team members, giving direction on what projects are to be tested, admin responsibility (such as performance evaluations and scheduling... [read more]

Karen Tobo: Alan, You might start by reviewing your leadership toolkit. How are your communication skills? Are you already comfortable communicating bad news and success stories, both to upper management and to those you are leading? How about handling conflicts... [read more]

Molly Mahai: Hi Alan, Welcome to test management. I learned on the job and looking back, I know some things that I would do right away if I had to start over at a new company. First, get to know where each team member is at? What's important to them, what are the... [read more]

Hi folks, I am speaking on this topic on Thursday, October 8. I wanted to see what issues were really challenging the troops out there on the front lines.

Karen Tobo: It seems that training and test tools are the perennial challenges for us. I'm thankful that I was registered for STARWEST right before our training budget was cut. As a school district, the big-name test tool vendors are completely out of our league... [read more]

I am looking for a framework best suited for mainframe automation. Please do suggest me!

Karen Tobo: Hmm, isn't Compuware's Hiperstation the market leader? Luckily for everyone involved, my mainframe days are long passed. (Crossing fingers!)

I cannot find a practical approach on how to use automation effectively. If anyone has good source of information, I would really appreciate it. Thanks, Molly

James Popp: There are lots of testing tools available. What sort of testing did you want to do?

Molly Mahai: I would like to do regression for sure, but I am also looking at things like data setup, and automating other aspects that will free up my testers for more complex scenarios. I have a tool (CompuWare's QA Director and TestPartner), I am looking for a... [read more]

James Popp: I first created a high level manual regression test that covered about fifty percent of the every-day user application functions. Then I automated that and use it as basic functionality test that can be executed after any code, db, or hardware change... [read more]

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