Testing

The IT industry is yet to deliver faultless software, despite the good results that have been achieved with various quality methods. Testing is, and will be, an important part of the software development process. In many projects testing accounts for 30 to 40% of the budget. Both the growing importance of software in society, and the costs of testing make a structured test approach necessary. Our service Test Consultancy can help companies  and organisations to improve the test process in a project or organisation. Test consultancy can focus on several areas of structured testing, including test planning, test tools, techniques or testing standards.

Test process improvement
If the existing testing approach in an organisation no longer suffices or if there is none, an improvement or implementation process is required. A new method is not effective if it doesn't work: it should not only be a solution to problems but also have the support of the employees involved! Improve Quality Services has a lot of experience in structured testing and implementing it! For best result we use test process improvement models like Test Maturity Model Integration (TMMi) or Test Process Improvement (TPI) as guidelines. Part of our service Test Process Improvement is a test assessment, that gives a relatively quick insight in the existing test approach and possible improvements. Using our broad experience, improve can help our organisation to achieve certain TMMi/TPI levels in an efficient and effective way. But the levels are not the goal, adding business value and improving the test process (in a measurable way) is what it's all about in the end. 

Risk analysis using Prisma
The most popular test approaches at the moment are risk based and requirement based testing. Improve consultants support you to determine what is really important in your software product, and what really needs to be tested. Our tool of choice is the PRISMA© tool that we developed together with Philips. The PRISMA© tool supports a structured approach for the execution of a product analysis. The result of a PRISMA© product analyses is a graphic with 4 quadrants that give a quick insight in the product risks that should be considered.  

Creating a test plan   
The cornerstone of every manageable, structured test process is a good test plan. The planning stage is an often under estimated but vital test phase. While creating the test plan the strategy is determined by the process of risk analysis. The target is always: the best possible coverage on the right place. We support the writing of the test plan for your project, determining test strategy, perform risk analysis, and help you determine the test budget.

Coaching
Even a well trained and experienced test manager or test coordinator can sometimes feel the need for an experienced professional that can give some situation-specific feedback and support. A coach that helps to use the theoretical knowledge. Our coaching enables test coordinators and test managers to apply their knowledge in their own organisation, and become truly effective.