Quality Assurance Testing

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Quality Assurance...

	The Growing Importance of Testing
<	As software and the user's operating environment continue to gain complexity, many companies are finding that they need to test their own applications more thoroughly before releasing them on the network or corporate Intranet.
<	Effective Quality Assurance Testing depends on three things: a thorough testing script and methodology, the ability to duplicate typical user environments, and a familiarity with software design and development.
<	As with most good product application development, quality and testing for it, needs to be built into the development cycle from the beginning. Ideally, testing is not an afterthought, but an integral part of the development process from the onset.

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	Key Quotes
	"The goal of testing is to find problems" --Glenford Myers, IBM Author< <
	"The second goal of testing is to find those problems before the client or end-user does." --HPMD

	What We Do We provide the following quality assurance services:
<	Testing Strategy Consulting We review your testing approach and help fine-tune your design to ensure your objectives (and budget) are met.
<	Creating Test Plans and Scripts We can review your current and former test plans or create detailed plans and scripts from scratch.
<	Managing and Executing Test Plans As former product managers at Chase/IDC and Lotus, we have 15+ years experience managing and conducting PC-based and Internet-based software tests.
<	Lab Testing with multiple end-user Operating Systems We maintain a test lab of PC's running Win 95, Win 98, Win 2000, and NT 3.51 and 4.0. We also have a varied environment of PC hardware and desktop software to best mimic your expected software environment. We also run Microsoft's IIS HTTP server and Notes Domino servers networked across an internal TCP/IP LAN and with remote Internet-based hosts. As former Lotus product managers, and long-term Lotus Business Partners, we are especially able to test Lotus Notes applications in a multi-server and multi-version environment.
<	Multiple type of testing We provide an ala carte' selection of testing approaches (see details below), include Sampling, Sparse and Full-Matrix Testing methodology.
<	Web-Based Bug and Change Request Tracking and Reporting We maintain a custom-tailored web-based bug tracking application for recording our findings and tracking trouble and wish-list items from inception to verified correction and implementation. Included in our application are "scorecard" reports especially useful for product managers and executives overseeing the software product development area.

Types of Testing
We provide the following dozen types of testing:

1) Acceptance Testing
Testing the system with the intent of confirming readiness of the product and customer acceptance.

2) Ad Hoc (or Smoke) Testing
Testing without, or outside of a test plan. With some projects this type of testing is carried out as an adjunct to formal testing. If carried out by a skilled tester it can often find problems that are not caught in regular testing. Sometimes, if testing occurs very late in the development cycle, this will be the only kind of testing that can be performed.

3) Alpha Testing
Testing after code is mostly complete or contains most of the functionality and prior to users being involved. Sometimes a select group of users are involved. More often this testing will be performed in-house or by an outside testing firm in close cooperation with the Software Engineering.

4) Beta Testing
Testing after the product is code complete. Beta versions are often widely distributed among clients to ensure new features meet client expectations.

5) Compatibility Testing
Testing used to determine whether other system software components such as browsers, utilities, and competing software will conflict with the software being tested.

6) Configuration Testing
Testing to determine how well the product works with a broad range of hardware/peripheral equipment configurations as well as on different operating systems and software.

7) Functional Testing
Testing two or more modules together with the intent of finding defects, demonstrating that defects are not present, verifying that the module performs its intended functions as stated in the specification and establishing confidence that a program does what it is supposed to do.

8) Installation Testing
Testing with the intent of determining if the product will install a variety of platforms and how easily it installs.

9) Performance Testing
Testing with the intent of determining how quickly a product handles a variety of events.

10) Regression Testing
Testing with the intent to determine if bug fixes have been successful and have not created any new problems. Also requiring a set of tests to ensure no degradation of baseline functionality has occurred.

11) Security Testing
This is especially important for database and network software in order to keep company data secure from mistaken, accidental or unauthorized users, as well as hackers.

12) Documentation Testing
Testing system functions against the written documentation to ensure the system performs as documented and the documentation is consistent with the system.

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For additional details on the types on projects we undertake, see our project - capabilities matrix.
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