Software Testing New Mantra : BPET

Business Process Execution Testing (BPET) is the new matra for software testing. Actually it has been slowly rattling in my mind for some time. Now I am finally acknowledging it in light of the challenges with one of my recent implementations. However, I was struggling to put those thoughts together and consolidate them in a framework. Finally this new acronym came to my mind and I said lets just express it. I just hope no one has used this acronym before!
But anyway, I think one of the fundamental reasons for high customer dissatisfaction with software systems is the lack of coherence with the operational processes. The reason being that the traditional software testing approach is bottom up starting with unit testing and graduating to integration testing and system testing. As a result the software is tested and verified for the way it was built and/or designed to built.Howevever when put to use, there are signficant operational gaps which make the system of little use and reduces its acceptance by the end user community. This has to change!! The wave is of business processes driven application and system design and testing needs to take on this paradigm shift heads on. This paradigm shift can be absorbed and addressed by imbibing and adopting the BPET philosophy!
First of all this philisophy is geared towards testing the software the way it is going to be used. How? You guessed it by mimicing business processes. So this approach starts with understanding the key business processes that support the organization and map them to the system identifying the ownership and roles of the system and its various components that support it. The rest of the plan is to define and develop test cases that verify these processes execution and the success and failure of the system to support the actions.
But two fundemental changes do exist with the traditional approach to testing. One is that the actors in this case (testers) are not traditional software testers but subject matter experts, operational staff who understand the business and have significant domain knowledge. The second but higly controversial, I assume since it causes radical mindset change is the defect priortization in this philosophy. A bug that crashes the application shall get a medium rating if it has minor operational risk.The situation that resulted in a bug is an exception and it is unlikely to occur or there is a reasonable workaround or avoidance strategy. At the same time a result that is not even technically an error – say, a degradation in performance during regular hours may be a showstopper since it means lack of customer response by customer help desk which means the 1000 calls being addressed every hour are not getting addressed. I think this is paradigm shift for both the business stakeholders and the software developers but it is the right way to execute the test strategy. After all it doesn’t matter whether the software is perfect or not as long as it meets the business process needs. BPET is the new mantra Amen!!!
I shall be further elaborating this area in my future blog updates!!!

Genius Babies

On 4th of July, when I had nothing else do but wait for the fireworks to start, I wandered into the Borders Store and hit this interesting book by David Plotz
"
The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank
"
Well, Twenty fours ago, millionaire Robert K. Graham began a most remarkable project: the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank for Nobel Prize winners. I guess more driven by the need to help preserve the genetic geniuses in the next generation than altruism or social engineering. This was to help reverse the genetic decay Graham saw all around him by preserving and multiplying the best genes of his generation. By the time Graham's repository closed in 1999, his genius sperm had been responsible for more than 200 children.
Want to know who these 200 children are? What are they doing? Interesting!!! Think about it ...
Here we are on the verge of what are called designer babies with modified genes this story puts insight into what happened when using Genetic Engineering 101 :"Using the most advanced technology of the time a sperm bank with top minds"
Go Figure!!!!

To Bid or Not to Bid

No different than the movie 'To Be or Not to Be' in terms of the comical twists and turns is the decision to bid or not to bid for a project. I guess every organization goes through the rigorous process of evaluating pros and cons of the bid or no bid decision. Rigorous in terms of time lost, energy spent... Definitely! A signficant time is spend in exchanging emails ( infact sometimes the email trail looks like a chapter of Adam Smith 'Wealth of Nations'. The book has just 1200 pages) expressing benefits or pitfalls of going after an opportunity. There are participants who are flip flops and justify every new decision based on a new insight into the context of the decision. There are participants who think it is important to be on the other side of the table to make the process more challenging, more prolonged, more fun. And I guess that is where the rigor of the process is!!!. There are players in this process who sit on the periphery and wait for a decision! Ahh smart people !!! And Alas a decision is made which appears final But Wait.. there is new information, new perspective..Hold On ..Here we go again. In Indian mythology a cat has 9 lives but the bid-no-bid.. beats it hands down. Till the next To Bid-or No Bid saga, I just smile

Enterprise Management Bus ( EMB)

Enterprise Management Bus Phew!! Still struggling to come into terms with enterprise Service Bus now we have been given this new term. But alas it is more simpler to understand and appreciate. But implementation is a separate story. So for now lets try to see if we understand this..Its all about the ability to have a unified view to systems, applications and network information. Well is it about business dashboards ( the roots are there) but it is about context aware dashboards that takes away human intervention looking at consoles. It is about autonomic computing. Bottom line with all the focus on enterprise integration, SOA the potential for all encompassing system management tool is out there which provides a multidimensional view cutting across applications, technologies. Wana design EMB, design ideas are requested!!! Collaboration is Welcome :)

Yet Another Attempt

This is yet another attempt to satisfy my urge to write via the internet and communicate with the world around me. I have had previous attempts but those fizzled out before it started. I know it needs discipline from me to put in some time to reflect on the events and activities and express it with candor. I hope this time it would work and this title makes it exciting... Since it means just express. I intend to freely express my ideas and opinions and bounce with everyone who are ready to give a honest feedback and improve the original idea. I welcome other people interested in expressing their ideas and opinions. I guess it is open canvas for people to share their opinions and form a collective opinion. Phenomenonal things have been achieved by open collaboration and I wish this blog can live a meaningful life and deliver what it is supposed to " Ideas and Opinions".