Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

Browse by Tags

Testing Problems (with pairs)

Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:55 PM by alanpa
I'm teaching in Vancouver, BC this week (incidentally, I think this is the first time I've taught a testing course since February or so). As usual, all of the students are smarter than me, so I try to make up for it by telling stories about testing and Read More...
1 Comments

JW on Testing

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:53 AM by alanpa
James Whittaker (author of the "How to break software" series) is now blogging . And to top it off, the guy can actually write pretty well - so well, in fact that I'll give you this short bit of advice: Add his blog to your reader / favorites Read More...
2 Comments

Am I a robot?

Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2008 9:00 PM by alanpa
This post comes from the “I had to share, but didn’t know who to share with” category. I’m neck deep in a research project – which means that I’m relying heavily on my search-fu to find some information. Tonight, I managed to type in a search that got Read More...
1 Comments

Fear of Measurement followup

Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:49 PM by alanpa
A few weeks ago, in this post , I asked the following question: Consider the following metric, then tear it apart and make it better. Tell me what could go wrong with it, how to make it more accurate or actionable or any other way it could be improved Read More...
2 Comments

Another perspective on the experience

Posted Wednesday, July 09, 2008 5:29 PM by alanpa
What's more important, security, or quality? Of course, the answer depends entirely on context. Or, the answer could be - "Neither - the experience is most important". For me, a bad software experience is simply defined as something that didn't Read More...
1 Comments

Waterfall, waterfall

Posted Saturday, July 05, 2008 2:13 PM by alanpa
I feel a little sorry for the waterfall model. Poor waterfall gets a lot of grief from the agilists – many who live in a black & white world where anything non-agile must be waterfall. I was doing some research this weekend and read this paper from Read More...
1 Comments

Fear of Measurement

Posted Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:39 PM by alanpa
Every time Shrini posts something, I want to write a whole post just to comment. His latest post is no exception (my response hasn't shown up yet because Shrini is one of those bloggers who insists on approving comments - no offense to Shrini, but I hate Read More...
5 Comments

"Experience" and the non-expert

Posted Friday, June 20, 2008 9:53 AM by alanpa
I was thinking about my last few posts this week and I recalled a story that may help in my point. Background: I send a short monthly newsletter to all testers at the company. Other discipline owners (e.g. my counter part in development or program management Read More...
1 Comments

“Experience Quality” and the senior tester

Posted Sunday, June 15, 2008 7:36 PM by alanpa
I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks investigating the role of test and the “experience” of quality software. Between the Customer Experience Improvement Program , Windows Error Reporting , Send a Smile , and connect , there is ample opportunity Read More...
5 Comments

Quality and the Experience

Posted Monday, June 09, 2008 4:48 PM by alanpa
I'm beating a dead horse here (or at least beating an old post ), but I have a story to share about quality (product names removed to protect the guilty). Recently, I had an experience where a piece of software I was using notified me that it would stop Read More...
2 Comments

Help Microsoft User Research

Posted Friday, June 06, 2008 7:36 PM by alanpa
I thought this might be interesting for some of you. My editorial comments are in maroon . Software Test Professionals Needed for Microsoft User Research Study Microsoft is conducting a usability study in order to gain insight into how you would like Read More...
0 Comments

Testing: Functionality vs. Experience

Posted Monday, June 02, 2008 11:08 AM by alanpa
I spent some time last night getting caught up on my test blog reading; and this morning, I'm attending some sessions on product quality at an internal forum. Something in the jumble of thoughts triggered a random thought I would like to share: I wonder Read More...
1 Comments

Test Estimation

Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008 11:41 AM by alanpa
I just read a post from Shrini on test estimation , and it triggered a thought that was tangential enough that I thought it made sense to try to capture it here rather than as a reply to Shrini. Numerous writings exist on estimation for programmers / Read More...
4 Comments

Working Together

Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:03 AM by alanpa
The Engineering Excellence group recently remodeled their office space to include “Team Rooms” for each of the discipline focused “Excellence” groups. Microsoft’s policy of supplying individual offices to engineers is well Read More...
0 Comments

Test to Developer ratios - you're probably doing it wrong

Posted Saturday, May 24, 2008 11:28 AM by alanpa
I haven't actually posted about testing for a while, so I thought I'd pull up something from the drafts folder and finish it. I would bet that just about any testing forum contains at least one question or discussion on test to developer ratios. Microsoft Read More...
0 Comments
More Posts Next page »
 
Page view tracker