Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 11:29:42 -0400 From: John Pustaver Subject: REMINDER: Software Quality Group Meeting, Wednesday, Apr 14, 1999, Improving the Effectiveness of Testing Hi Everyone, This will probably be our last meeting at Waterfield. I'm hoping that we will have a new home before the May meeting. Best wishes, John Software Quality Group Meeting Meetings of the Software Quality Group are held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month (with occasional exceptions) at the facilities of Waterfield Technology Group, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington, Massachusetts (see below for directions). MEETING DAY & DATE: Wednesday, Apr 14, 1999 TIME: 6:15 PM HEADLINE: Improving the Effectiveness of Testing SPEAKER: Steve Rakitin, consultant and author of Software Verification & Validation: A Practitioner's Guide MORE INFO: John Pustaver, 978-443-4254, pustaver@swquality.com LOCATION: Waterfield Technology Group, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington DESCRIPTION: Frequently, testing fails to find key defects that are found instead, by customers after the product is released. This causes customers to loose confidence in the product and the company. This also results in a plethora of costly "Bug Fix Releases". This presentation will identify some specific ways to make the testing that is done more effective - that is to say, more likely to uncover those defects that your customers are likely to find. "Act Like A Customer Testing" is an essential ingredient for improving the effectiveness of testing. Using your knowledge of how your customers use your product to focus your testing increases the likelihood that testing will find those defects customers are likely to find. By focusing on areas such as: Test Organization, Test Planning, Traceability, Root Cause Analysis, Defect Measurement, and Completion Criteria test teams can improve the effectiveness of the tests they develop and as a result, release products with fewer defects that customers are likely to find. These techniques can help reduce or eliminate costly "Bug Fix Releases". Steven R. Rakitin has over 25 years experience as a software engineer and software quality manager in a broad range of industries including nuclear power, defense, computers, automated test equipment, telecommunications, medical instrumentation, and electronic design automation. He was one of the authors of the IEEE Standard for Software Quality Assurance Plans (IEEE-STD-730). He has written several papers on the subject of software quality and recently published a book titled: Software Verification & Validation: A Practitioner's Guide. He received a BSEE from Northeastern University and an MSCS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has earned certifications from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) as a Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) and Quality Auditor (CQA). He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and the ASQ Software Division. He teaches courses on Software Verification & Validation at Northeastern University and Johns Hopkins. As Principal at Software Quality Consulting, he works with companies interested in developing quality software on time. For more information, visit http://www.swqual.com NEXT MEETING NOTE: The next meeting will be held on Apr. 14, 1999, the 2nd Wednesday. Purr McEwen, of Waterfield Technology Group will speak on Use Case Modeling 1999 Software Quality Group Calendar May 12, 1999 Optimum Software Testing Bill Silver, Principal, Quality Fractals June 9, 1999 SQA and testing, bringing it all together - combining quality activities and testing, Margot Sevigny-Martin July 14, 1999 Annual Hot Topics Night August 1999 No meeting Sep. 8, 1999 Functional Safety, Milt Boyd, Factory Mutual System The Software Quality Group holds monthly meetings. Topics covered at these meetings have included software testing, inspections, ISO 9000, metrics configuration management, and demonstrations of vendor QA tools. There is no charge. The Software Quality Group meets monthly at 6:15pm on the second Wednesday of the month at the facilities of Waterfield Technology Group, Lexington Office Park, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington, 2nd floor, next to the elevator. This is just off of route 95 (AKA 128) at the Rtes 4 & 225 exit in Lexington. Take the west bound exit. 430 Bedford Street is on the left in Lexington Office Park just before the Denny's restaurant but you can't make a left here so you have to go to the turn-around a little further up the road. Information about future meetings will be available on the Software Quality Page at http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver. To be on the email distribution list, send a note to pustaver@swquality.com. The Software Quality Group is cosponsored by the ASQ Software Division and all are welcome. Directors of the Software Quality Group are John Pustaver, Region I Councilor, American Society for Quality, Software Division and Bill Nicholson, Waterfield Technology Group. ------------------------------------------------------------ Software Quality Consulting voice:978-443-4254 fax:978-443-6052 pustaver@swquality.com http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver