Month: March 2013

These days a large part of successful project management and test management depends on the integration of tools. Tools that are used across different business functions need to be integrated to provide visibility and traceability across the business. For example the Dev team and QA team might need different tools for test management and agile development. Yet the team as a whole need to be able to report on progress and quality across both functions. Yet with testers raising defects in one tool and developers looking at defects in another tool it’s difficult to keep track and keep in sync. In this sort of situation integration of development and QA tools makes sense. We’re going to take a look at...

I read an article the other day that questioned if collaboration actually impacts productivity. As software testers in the age of agile we’re encouraged to embrace the concept of collaboration as something that will improve the way in which we work. We’re pushed to collaborate within the test management process and other business processes. And we’re pushed into working in groups in open plan offices. There’s probably some merit in this argument that collaboration might result in reduced productivity. In an open plan office we’re constantly interrupted by other people. We find it easier to waste time chatting with people. Getting things done in dedicated and focused work sessions has become more difficult. Some blame this on our desire to...