Author: Mick Stevens

We Have Moved

Posted on by

Welcome to the QA Blog!

We have moved our Quality Assurance blog from the QA website to the new PMO website as part of ITS!

The QA group is now a member of the ITS – Project Management Office (PMO), and is dedicated to providing testing services for all software projects within the (PMO). Among other things, these testing services include test planning, determining test strategies, exploring the user’s needs, and reporting issues effectively.

Everyone has heard of Quality Assurance, but there are many differing opinions on what it really is. And just as many questions; such as…

  • What is Quality Assurance?
  • Why do we need it?
  • Can we really assure the quality of anything?

Continue reading →

Heuristics and Oracles

Posted on by

These terms are being thrown around a lot lately in the testing community, and they can cause some confusion the first time you hear them being used in this context. They definitely confused me the first time I heard them, so I will attempt to provide some clarification in this post.

What are heuristics and oracles, and why should you learn more about them?

I have found that heuristics and oracles provide a great starting point for testing, especially when little is known about the product, and they frequently result in more thorough tests. They also help to label methods and processes that would otherwise be difficult to explain. Labeling these processes makes it easier to improve them. But what are they…?  Continue reading →

Quality Basics

Posted on by 
Excerpt taken from the Software Testing Body of Knowledge for CSTE

The “basics” of software testing are represented by the vocabulary of testing, testing approaches, methods and techniques, as well as the materials used by testers in performing their test activities.

Quality Assurance versus Quality Control

There is often confusion regarding the difference between quality control and quality assurance. Many “quality assurance” groups, in fact, practice quality control. Quality methods can be segmented into two categories: preventive methods and detective methods. This distinction serves as the mechanism to distinguish quality assurance activities from quality control activities. This discussion explains the critical difference between control and assurance, and how to recognize a Quality Control practice from a Quality Assurance practice.

Continue reading →

Software Testing Schools of Thought

Posted on by

Just as there are various models for the SDLC, there are different “schools of thought” within the testing community. A school of thought is simply defined as “a belief (or system of beliefs) shared by a group.” Dr. Cem Kaner, Bret Pettichord, and James Bach are most often cited in regard to the “software testing schools.” They are also responsible for creating the Context-Driven approach to testing. The first real discussion about these schools was by Bret Pettichord (2003) who described the following four schools. Since that time, Agile and the Test-Driven school were added to the list.

Continue reading →