Razor Sharp Functional Testing in The Modern Era
Article written by: 16 April,2017
There it was. Written on our little white board where employees generally write an inspired quote or some fun trivia. But today, after a particularly grueling product meeting trying to determine our minimum viable product (MVP) for an upcoming new release, I went to fill my coffee and saw this written on the board. Occam’s Razor […]
If it ain’t broke, fix it. And fast.
Article written by: 16 March,2017
If it ain’t broke, fix it. And fast. I bet you read that headline twice, didn’t you? It may seem backwards, but stay with me here. Early this week I was with a Senior VP of Operations for a Fortune 200 company. I asked a few of my standard battery of questions about business operations, […]
Peer-to-Peer: How Record and Playback is Killing Your Productivity
Article written by: 4 January,2017
I am often asked about the difference between record and playback testing approach and data-driven testing methodology. This post outlines the difference between the two, and illustrates why one of them is killing your productivity. Record and playback testing methods were developed in the 1980’s, and were a great use of technology at the time. […]
The Economics of Business Components in Test Automation
Article written by: 25 October,2016
What is a Component? A business component is the basic building block of scriptless test automation. It provides the ability to quickly and easily build a test case by breaking down the flow through your business application, one step at a time. In its most basic sense, a business component represents an individual application screen. The […]
Evergreen Automation: Solving a Classic Test Automation Problem
Article written by: 9 October,2016
The Classic Achilles Heel in Test Automation One of the classic challenges in testing, and the Achilles heel in many a test automation program is the difficulty in keeping test cases current as changes are made to the applications under test. While some applications remain reasonably static, there are others that are much more change-centric and […]
3 Things I Learned at Oracle OpenWorld
Article written by: 26 September,2016
I, along with 60,000 of my closest friends, descended upon San Francisco last week to participate in Oracle OpenWorld 2016. There was a tremendous amount of valuable content, education, information, discovery, debates (over technology as well as politics), and good fun. With that many people and that much content, however, it’s hard to recap it thoroughly. […]
To CIOs: Did Critical ERP Security Updates and Patches Cause the PoS Breach?
Article written by: 29 August,2016
Recently an article appeared on the Computing UK website entitled, “Oracle attackers ‘possibly got unlimited control over credit cards’ on US retail systems, warns ERPScan.” The article talks about exposure to potentially every credit card used in US retail as a result of the control hackers gained to Point of Sale (PoS) systems when exploiting […]
7 Things You Need to Know about Automated Testing Before Your Next Test Cycle
Article written by: 27 July,2016
I run across a lot of testing organizations that haven’t yet made the leap to automated testing. There are a lot of misconceptions about test automation and there are many things that these folks are unknowingly missing by not taking that step. If you’re one of them, please read on. Common misconceptions about test […]
From Handcuffed to Highly Competitive CA Technologies Podcast
Article written by: 22 May,2016
Every large enterprise organization is in the software business. JP Morgan Chase employs nearly 30,000 programmers. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly 10,000 more programmers than Google, according to Google’s Annual Report. Why would a financial company have a software team bigger than Google? Because software fuels their commerce and runs their business. Because […]
How Do You Choose What Tests to Automate?
Article written by: 2 March,2016
I get this question a lot and am often asked when we start Professional Services engagements with our clients. The answer is simply to identify applications that present the highest potential business risk and start there. What do I mean by business risk? If you look at the application(s) under test, and answer these key […]