Recently, I gave up my “day” job as a Release Management guru to take on an assignment as a test manager. You might think that this was a strange decision on my part (and honestly I did volunteer knowing that this would require a couple months of 12 hour six day work weeks!). The truth is, I have done more testing (although usually automated testing) than I have done CM. So, was this really changing jobs or just expanding my role in the organization? Testing is a natural job responsibility for the experienced CM practitioner. If you want to jump start your career and boost your value as a technology expert read on to see how Testing fits perfectly into my real “day job” which is helping my organization deploy complex financial systems rapidly to support our global business objectives!
What is Testing?
The literature tells us that testing is confirming that the application conforms to specification. That’s nice, but in the financial services industry there is often no written “spec.” The “spec” is in someone’s head. So being a test manager means that you are working primarily with other technology (and business) professionals to understand how the system should work. For me, this meant a great opportunity to learn about Fixed Income Derivatives. I did take the step of stopping at my local bookstore to purchase some texts that would help me understand the terminology. This was essential, since I have to work with the users to write test cases/scripts and show them the new system. Soon, my colleagues were asking me to enter trades, because I understand how the application works. I could be tempted here to keep this knowledge to myself, because then they will have to always come to me for help. That however would obviously not really add much value to my organization. Instead, I readily share what I have learned and thereby help the entire team to be more effective.
Establishing the Process…
The next step is for me to post some pages on an intranet to show my colleagues how to enter the trades. I also posted the test plan and published the relevant dates and tasks to come. I solicited input from my boss and a couple of other managers. Well this did add a lot of work, because they all have their own idea of what they want to see, but that is ok. The information posted now includes input from a number of people and serves as a global test plan and resource for test cases/scripts and valid data. If I am unavailable for a few hours, people know where they can go to get their questions answered.
Understanding the Environment…
I do offer to act as backup for the buildmeister. Because I understand the build and deployment process, (even though I am not the buildmeister on this project) I understand the overall architecture of the system. Now I am starting to move into a role where I can also do production support. Today, I am focused on user testing, but I have also looked at the low level Unit test drivers and I have documented how to run them. These tools can act as an early warning alert system if something is going wrong with the environment.
Technology Exposure…
The test manager who can look under the covers can learn a great deal about the leading edge technologies involved (e.g. XML Soap Messages, Java Web Services and BEA WebLogic).
The Next Steps…
The next step is to look at automating the testing process. Some testing tasks cannot be automated easily and I do not believe that test automation can completely take the place of manual testers. My readers may have noticed that my articles last month (and this month) were a bit rushed. (I apologize for the typos!) That’s because I am knee deep in this testing effort, which I love. Please consider this a report from the trenches. Combining the knowledge of CM and Testing is powerful combination that adds value to the organization and your career!
Bob Aiello is a Senior Contributing Editor for Crossroads News and an Associate Director at Bear Stearns & Co. where he is engaged in Software Process Improvement on a large scale basis. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Organizational Development Network of Greater New York (ODNofGNY) and a member of the Steering Committee of CitySPIN in New York. Mr. Aiello has a Masters in Industrial Psychology and a BS in Computer Science.
You can reach Mr. Aiello by email at raiello@acm.org
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