Words From a Purple Mind

The test plan is very important in any organization. The Test Plan defines the project’s objectives, scope, approach, and focus of its testing efforts. The process of preparing a Test Plan provides an effective way to think through the efforts needed to validate the acceptability of the application under test (AUT).

There are various roles on projects, some people may play more than one role. You should always check with your organizations testing methodology on what your role(s) are. Below is a breakdown of quality assurance roles and responsibilities:

Phase: All

Test Lead
• Oversees all testing staff and activities for all assigned applications

I previously wrote a post on sites that can help you find your next QA job. In that post I listed a newcomer site called LondonTester. The site is now live.

Are you looking for a new position or a new contract? Below is a list of some great sites for you to check out to find your next quality assurance job/contract.

I also created the Twitter List “@jayphilips/employment” so you can get updates from all of the people listed on this post that have a Twitter account with one just click.

The testing methodology is very important in any organization. This document lays the foundation for the testing group. It’s main purpose is to set consistency and discipline to the testing process. It guides you through the process by defining why testing is being done, who is testing, what is produced during the various phases, and when it testing should be included in a project.

Software testing is not just limited to testing the application, it also includes documentation. Testing documentation is used for a variety of reasons:

• Explains the purpose & goal of testing
• Explains will be tested & how
• Provide testing results to the project team

This is a extension of the blog post “10+ Software Testing Blogs“. This blog post has 200+ software testing blogs and tweeters.

I also created the Twitter List “@jayphilips/software-testing” so you can follow all of the people listed on this post with one just click.

1. Abby Fichtner
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I was cleaning out a folder on my machine when I stumbled on an oldie but goodie PDF called “Classic Testing Mistakes” by Brian Marick.

In the paper he states how he breaks the classic mistakes into 5 themes and how to resolve the mistakes:

Security testing is a process to determine that an IS (Information System) protects data and maintains functionality as intended.

The six concepts that need to be covered by security testing are: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorization, availability, and non-repudiation.

Test Management tools are very important to any test team. Test teams use these tools to help capture requirements, design test cases, map test cases to requirements, test execution reports and much more. Companies may use one to many tools for this, which range from very expensive to open source. My advice would be to pick a tool that can meet most of your current and near future needs.