Global teams are increasingly becoming a reality with advancement in networking and internet technologies. You may have part of your team on west coast, east coast, in Europe or Asia. Although global teams seem to be a great way to bring diverse talent and to improve time-to-market, many projects actually fail to deliver on promises. An exception is the MSN Messenger team. After first setting reasonable goals and roadmaps for each team(s) and selecting projects that were amenable to remote work then hired the right talent or vendor resources that could support long-term project requirements. Samir Shah shares the techniques, especially those related to communications, that they employ at each stage of the effort to help them succeed. Samir describes the data they capture and the set of metrics they use to keep them on track. Find out what it takes to scale your team to be a successful global team.

With frequent reports in the news of successful hacker attacks on Web sites, application security is no longer an afterthought. More than ever, organizations realize that security has to be a priority while applications are being developed-not after. Developers and QA professionals are learning that Web application security vulnerabilities must be treated like any other software defect. Organizations can save time and money by identifying and correcting these security defects early in the development process. Ryan English helps you overcome the “deer in the headlights” look when you are asked to begin testing applications for security issues. See real world examples of company Web sites that have been hacked because of vulnerable applications and see how the attacks could have been avoided.

• Security defect categories and responsibility areas

The use of objective test metrics is an important step toward improving your ability to effectively manage any test effort. With the two test metrics-the S-Curve and Zero Bug Bounce-you can easily track the progress of the test effort. Learn to graph the S-Curve, showing cumulative test cases planned, attempted, and completed over time. Keep track of the Bug Bounce-the number of open bugs at the end of a period (usually one to several days)-and especially Zero Bug Bounce-the first time development has resolved all the bugs raised by the testers and there are no active outstanding issues. Improve your ability to communicate to the project team test results and test needs and make better decisions about when your application is ready to ship.

• Derive a theoretical and actual S-Curve for test cases using historic and current data
• Use the Zero Bug Bounce for tracking defect correction activities

The Squall team’s product prototype pleases big client Acme. But when the client won’t budge on its strict quality, time, or budgetary requirements, the Squall team leaders determine that the best they can offer Acme is the truth.