1. Quality Assurance in Software Industry
Smiler Yang
2012/12/13

2. Outline
• About me
• Roles in a project
• Why a software needs QA
• QA tasks
• Testing Methodology
• Examples
• Some stories in real world
• Happy and Unhappy
• Q&A

3. Roles in a project
• PM (Product Manager)
• JM (Project Manager)
• DM (Developer Manager)
• QM (QA Manager)
• Architecture
• RD
• QA
• UI Designer
• Technical Writer

4. Why a software needs QA?
• Did you test your program?
– I think it’s “Yes”
– But you might not consider everything…
So, we need---
• Different people
• Different knowledge
• Different environment

5. QA tasks
• Requirement Clarification • Bug Reporting
• Test Plan • Bug Verification
• Test Spec • Document Testing
• Test Case • Test Automation
• Environment Preparation • Beta training
• Functional Testing • Customer on-site
• System Testing
• Exploratory Testing

6. Testing Methodology

7. Testing Methodology (1/5)
• Black Box Testing
– Perform the tests on the basis of functional properties and
requirements of a software
– Focus on the selected test data and the interpretation of test
results
– Needs experience…
– Includes
• Functional Test
• Error-handling Test
• Boundary Test
• Performance Test
• Stress Test
• Usability Test
• I18N Test (internationalization test)
• …

8. Testing Methodology (2/5)
• White Box Testing
– Need to understand overall system architecture
– Inspect code of function implementation
– Focus on testing the paths of control flow and data flow
• Go through all independent paths
• Exercise logical decisions
• Executed all loops with boundary condition checked

9. Testing Methodology (3/5)
• Test Plan
– Purpose of Test Plan
• Sync Testing Direction with JM/DM/RD
• To Give all testing directions/information to QA Engineer
– Information required in a test plan
• MRD/PRD/Functional Spec/High Level Design
– Schedule of each development process, Feature List, System
Requirement, Product Team Information
• Configuration Compatibility Testing
– hardware compatibility / software (OS/Application) compatibility
• What is the user expecting to the product?
– How does Customer use the product?
– on what kind of the environment?

10. Testing Methodology (4/5)
• Define the Scope of testing of Features and Environments
– Doing and not doing
– Decide the priority of Features and Environment
• Define of Bug Severity
– Severity: Critical/Serious/Non-Critical/Enhancement/Suggestion
• Define Testing methods
• Resource Planning
– People
– Environment
• Preparation of the testing
– Knowledge: QA knowledge, product knowledge, …
– Environment: Software, Hardware,…
• Process for Testing/Management
– Bug Tracking System
– Checking method of the progress
– Bug Review Meeting
–…

11. Testing Methodology (5/5)
• Test Case
– What is Test Case?
• The set of input data, operation steps and expected result
• Operation steps includes conditions, configurations, environment
information, …
– What is good Test Case?
• The purpose of the testing is to improve the quality by finding the
errors.
• Test case should cover all requirements.
• Test case should take the wrong input/output and wrong operation
into consideration.
• Test case should have clear description.

12. Examples

13. Example of Test Case Creation
• Use Case:
– Account Login in a web portal
• Test cases??
– Hint:
• Functional Test
• Error-handling Test
• Boundary Test
• Performance Test
• Stress Test
• Usability Test
• I18N Test

14. Example of Bug Reporting
• Issue: User failed to login the web portal
• How to describe a problem?
• The information of a bug should include:
– Title
– Environment
– Version/build number
– OS/Platform
– Priority
– Severity
– Defect Type
– Frequency
– Description
– Steps
– Expected results
– …

15. Some stories in real world

16. QA and JM
<Before the milestone day>
• JM: Any issues of the candidate build?
• QA: So far we found #358 is the problem for…, and
#359 is the issue when user…., and…..
• JM: Have RD found the root cause for these issues?
• ….
• …
• Then “3M” may have a meeting to review the issues.

17. QA and RD
< After QA submit a bug to RD>
• RD: This problem didn’t appear in my machine.
• QA: It did happen in my testing environment!
• …
• ..
• .

18. QA and Customer
<One day…>
• Customer: The service is not available after I used the
system for only 2 days.
• QA: What did you do on the machine today? Do you
think it’s normal yesterday?
• Customer: I don’t know. I just moved the machine from
my office to server room.
• QA: Why did you move the machine?
• …
• ..

19. A day of a QA
• Read emails
• Clean environment and install new build.
• Testing, bug verification, …
• Find new bug and submit it to RD.
• Discussion for the current issues.
• Discussion for the new features.
• Write test plan / test spec / test case
• Clarify, reproduce issues and collect more debug log…
• Review document, write automation, …..
• Reading, study group, …

20. Happy and Unhappy
• Happy • Unhappy
– Improve the quality of the – Too many tasks
software – “Why didn’t you find the bug
– Provide the solution that before the release?”
customers really need – Schedule VS Quality
– Learn new things – …
– …

21. Q&A

22. Thank you~