The Top Ten Signs You Need to Improve Your Testing Process

Does this sound familiar? Patch #94 was just released for the application you shipped last month; your customers refuse to upgrade to the latest version until someone else tries it first; your project manager casually asks if the application was tested on Windows 98 because that's what your biggest customer uses. Robert Watkins discusses these and other signs of test process breakdowns. He then suggests ways to improve the testing process by making sure the testing activities are in line with the needs of all stakeholders (customers, business owners, support staff, developers, and testers). Find new ways to establish appropriate quality gates that everyone honors, enlist the best champion for your improvement efforts, and communicate the right information to the right people at the right time.

• Improvements to mitigate or eliminate test process breakdowns
• How to evaluate the effectiveness of test process improvement
• Ways to make sure that positive changes stick