Testing and Repeat-ability Repeat-ability of testing results is important to establishing cause and corrective actions. If it is not possible to repeat the sequence of events leading to a failure, it is not possible to replicate and therefore difficult solve the cause of the fault or failure. The steps that evoked the problem are necessary […]
Not a Verification Problem I recently had a flash of a project from the past. The project had a fixed delivery date. The project was to deliver a system through iterative and incremental deliveries. Sounds pretty good right? An iterative and incremental delivery of sub systems and components to the verification group in a way […]
Why Lessons Learned are vital to the long-term vitality of organizations To best discuss any topic, we must first establish a common foundation from which to build. Let’s start by defining some key terms: 1. Lesson: an activity that is done in order to learn something; also: something is taught, a single class or part […]
Below is an excerpt of our book Testing of Complex and Embedded Systems Pries, K., & Quigley, J. (2011). Chapter 4. In Testing Complex and Embedded Systems (pp. 33-35). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Basic Principle of Testing The verification and test group is there to provide some critical and unbiased review of the […]
The early testimonials for our Configuration Management book out early next year.
Qualitative Testing Qualitative tests look for a change in a quality; for example, a color might change. Qualitative tests always involve the use of attributes rather than variables values (e.g., temperature). Consider the Kastle-Meyer test for the presence of blood–an archetype for qualitative forensic testing. The test is impressively quick and functions as a decision […]
In our last blog post, we referred to the APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) activity of DFMEA. The post was about the attempt to perform late in a project. The point to the DFMEA in that instance was lost; at best, if we found a serious problem, would be to abort the launch. The post […]
The blog “Testers Do Not Break the Product” was posted on LinkedIn and there were considerable responses and exchanges. In an effort to continue that same discourse, I post some of that exchange. Many thought the language “breaking”, as did many others, to be unclear or ambiguous. The language in this discussion originates from the […]
Conventional Project The previous two blogs demonstrated a way to employ agile techniques. At the top level the project was executed as a conventional project. The project had gates, a steering committee and numerous schedule layers. The organizational structure is balanced matrix (for the most part). The organization is distributed both by function and geographic […]
As we execute the test cases, we will likely find failures. These failures or faults will be reported into a reporting system that will allow us to track the failure resolution. We can also use that here in our progress tracking sheet.