Types of software testing and their position in the testing cycle.

With countless types of software testing, it can be daunting to figure out what you should focus on and when. Our experience has taught us that focusing on the right testing at the right time, saves both time and money.

This diagram illustrates the software testing cycle. It starts with very specific tests on core components, then tests those components as a whole and works its way towards user acceptance and beta testing.

Following this testing cycle increases efficiency as each new test builds upon previous tests. To be even more efficient, using automated software testing will greatly reduce… Continue reading

Don't flush money down the drain. Coordinate your development and testing cycles.

In any software product, quality is commonly recognized as lack of bugs. This is expressed as the reliability of software or defect rate.

To survive in a hyper competitive environment, many software organizations are now focused on a Quality of Service based approach towards the development and testing process.

Benefits of the Quality of Service approach:

• Save time and money by identifying defects early
• Identify and catalog reusable modules and components
• Avoid or reduce development downtime
• Provide better customer service by building a better application
• Build a list

Whether you’re new to software testing or have been doing it for a lifetime, here is a list of 7 books so you can learn from the successes and failures of others.

1. How We Test Software at Microsoft: Written by 3 lead test architects at Microsoft, this book explains practical testing solutions. Using insight gained from their combined experience, they explain how the software testing process works at Microsoft. If you’re using Microsoft technologies for development and testing (ie: .Net), this is a must read.
2. Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams: If you’re interested in learning how to apply agile testing practices to your testing process, this book

Facebook is famous for its rapid development and frequent releases. That agile software development cycle requires diligent software testing and bug tracking. Steven Grimm, a Test Engineering Tech Lead at Facebook, has shared his experience using a combination of manual and automated tools while developing at Facebook.

In order to manage the steady stream of updates, Facebook has implemented a hybrid system of automated and manual tests. This system is built of several tools (mentioned below) that interface with their bug tracking software. By integrating testing with their bug tracking software, they are able to efficiently identify which tests are failing and which engineers can resolve the issues. The suite will… Continue reading

We have been steadily ramping up our agile software testing services in Vancouver and are here to answer a few frequently asked questions.

1. What is agile software testing?

To understand what agile software testing is, it’s best to compare waterfall software development to agile software development. The waterfall methodology is a sequential software development cycle that designs and develops an entire application in one project.

Agile software development is more iterative. Software developers deliver early versions of the software to end users so that users can start working with the software, generating feedback, and making feature requests. This way, developers receive user feedback before deciding which features… Continue reading

Automation can be important to agile software testing because the development process is much more iterative and requires frequent testing. A waterfall development cycle only requires major testing at the end of the development process; whereas, agile development requires testing throughout.

What’s the difference between waterfall and agile software development?

Below is a typical example of the waterfall methodology. As illustrated, the process leads developers through a series of sequential steps with major testing done towards the end.