QA Blog

May 7, 2017 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

Goa, was exactly how people said it to be..a beach for every kind of a person, an intoxicating night life, exotic food, surreal afternoons and a treasure cove- a find for every traveler.

April 14, 2017 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

#vacation #holiday #instadaily #picoftheday #wanderlust #adventure #travelporn #worldnomad #iamatraveler #ourplanetdaily #solotravel #time #citytrip #sunny #day #goodtime #good #taste #extensiondecils #beaute #volumerusso #womanbeauty #eyeslash #extensioneyelash #estetik #esthetique #beauty

#canonphotography #clouds #cloudoftheday #cloudscape #cloudporn #skyporn #streetshot #streetfashion #stylegram #ootd #instashot #instastyle #instafashion #instamoments #instabeauty #igstyle #ig_asia #igtravel #ig_myshot #igaddicts

#canonphotography #clouds #cloudoftheday #cloudscape #cloudporn #skyporn #streetshot #streetfashion #stylegram #ootd #instashot #instastyle #instafashion #instamoments #instabeauty #igstyle #ig_asia #igtravel #ig_myshot #igaddicts #canonphotography #clouds #cloudoftheday #cloudscape #cloudporn #skyporn #streetshot #streetfashion #stylegram #ootd #instashot #instastyle #instafashion #instamoments #instabeauty #igstyle #ig_asia #igtravel #ig_myshot #igaddicts

How the solution of Testing Algorithms handles missing, unstable and changing requirements?

December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

The purpose of this article to demonstrate how the solution of Testing Algorithms handles changing requirements. I will use a simple example from our case study.

Consider a web application for an online book store is being developed using Agile methodology. Following is on of the user stories and its acceptance criteria:

1. Missing Requirements

There is clearly a missing requirement – How the application should behave if search is initiated with a null string?

How did we find the missing requirement? Simple. While creating our model (see below), we broke down the functionality into its various components and then explored the possible instances of all the dimensions that we need to test this with.

Now the question is, how to close the gap for this missing requirement? Well, there are at least two options for this:

Option 1: Throw an error – “Please enter a non-null search string!”

Option 2: Show all books in search result.

Now, it would completely depend on the business users to choose the option from the available ones.

However, we have created the following model for this user story:

Following is the Use Case diagram that was automatically generated:

Following is the Process Model diagram that was automatically generated:

And this is how the two options described above have been handles while creating the model:

Option 1: Throw an error – “Please enter a non-null search string!”

Following is the Given-When-Then (i.e., Gherkin) test cases that were automatically generated for Option 1:

Option 2: Show all books in search result

Following is the Given-When-Then (i.e., Gherkin) test cases that were automatically generated for Option 2:

2. Unstable & Changing Requirements

Let’s assume that Option 1 was chosen in Sprint 1 to take care of the missing requirement.

But then, the business users came back just before Sprint 2 that Option 1 is not working for them and they need to switch to Option 2.

How this situation should be handled in Sprint 2?

Simple. We just need to make the two small changes (i.e., in Scenario & Expected Result fields) and submit the model again to generated updated scripts and business models.

Interview Q/A

December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

Ques.1. What is software testing?
Ans. Software testing is evaluating a system to check if it satisfies the business requirement. It measures the overall quality of the system in terms of attributes like correctness, completeness, usability, performance etc.

Ques.2. Why is Testing required?
Ans. We need software testing for following reasons-

Testing provides an assurance to the stakeholders that product works as intended
Avoidable defects leaked to the end user/customer without proper testing adds bad reputation to the development company
Separate testing phase adds a confidence factor to the stakeholders regarding quality of the software developed
Defects detected earlier phase of SDLC results into lesser cost and resource utilisation of correction
Saves development time by detecting issues in earlier phase of development
Testing team adds another dimension to the software development by providing a different view point to the product development process

Ques.3. When should we stop testing?
Ans. Testing can be stopped based on the following conditions –

On completion of all the scripted test cases.
Once the testing deadline is met.
When the code coverage reaches a certain threshold.

Ques.4. What is Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance is a process driven approach which checks if the process of developing the product is correct and conforming to all the standards.

Ques.5. What is Quality Control?
Ans. Quality control is product driven approach which checks that the developed product conforms to all the specified requirements.

Ques.6. What is validation?
Ans. Validation is the process of validating that the developed software product conforms to the specified business requirements. It involves dynamic testing of software product by running it.

Ques.7. What is verification?
Ans. Verification is the process of evaluating the artifacts of software development in order to ensure that the product being developed will comply to the standards. It is static process of analysing the documents and not the actual end product.

Ques.8. What is SDLC?
Ans. Software Development Life Cycle refers to all the activities that are performed during software development including- requirement analysis, designing, implementation, testing, deployment and maintenance phases.

software development lifecycle

Ques.9. Explain STLC – Software Testing life cycle.
Software testing life cycle refers to all the activities performed during testing of a software product. The phases include-

Requirement analyses and validation – In this phase the requirements documents are analysed and validated and scope of testing is defined.
Test planning – In this phase test plan strategy is defined, estimation of test effort is defined along with automation strategy and tool selection is done.
Test Design and analysis – In this phase test cases are designed, test data is prepared and automation scripts are implemented.
Test environment setup – A test environment closely simulating the real world environment is prepared.
Test execution – The test cases are prepared, bugs are reported and retested once resolved.
Test closure and reporting – A test closure report is prepared having the final test results summary, learnings and test metrics.

Ques.10. What are the different types of testing?
Testing can broadly be defined into two types-

Functional testing – In functional testing, the system is tested for validity of the functional specification or it involves validating the functionality of the system
Non Functional testing – Non functional testing includes testing the non-functional requirements of the system like performance, security, scalability, portability, endurance etc.

Going by the way the testing is done, it can be categorized as-

Black box testing – In black box testing, the tester need not have any knowledge of the internal architecture or implementation of the system. The tester interact with the system through the interface providing input and validating the received output.
White box testing – In white box testing the tester analyses the internal architecture of the system as well as the quality of source code on different parameters like code optimization, code coverage, code reusability etc.
Gray box testing – In gray box testing, the tester has partial access to the internal architecture of the system e.g. the tester may have access to the design documents or database structure. This information helps tester to test the application better.

Ques.11. What is a bug?
Ans. A bug is a fault in a software product detected at the time of testing, causing it to function in an unanticipated manner.

Ques.12. What is a defect?
Ans, A defect is non-conformance with the requirement of the product detected in production by the end user.

Ques.13. What is alpha testing?
Ans. Alpha testing is the testing done by a group of potential end users or some independent test team at the developer site.

Ques.14. What is defect density?
Ans. Defect density is the measure of density of the defects in the system. It can be calculated by dividing number of defect identified by the total number of line of code(or methods or classes) in the application or program.

Ques.15. What is defect priority?
Ans. A defect priority is the urgency of the fixing the defect. Normally the defect priority is set on a scale of P0 to P3 with P0 defect having the most urgency to fix.

Ques.16. What is defect severity?
Ans. Defect severity is the severity of the defect impacting the functionality. Based on the organisation we can different levels of defect severity ranging from minor to scritical or show stopper.

Ques.17. Give an example of Low priority-Low severity, Low priority-High severity, High priority-Low severity, High priority-High severity defects.
Ans.

Low priority-Low severity – A spelling mistake in a page not frequently navigated by users.
Low priority-High severity – Application crashing in some very corner case.
High priority-Low severity – Slight change in logo color or spelling mistake in company name.
High priority-High severity – Issue with login functionality.

Ques.18. What is a blocker?
Ans. A blocker is a bug of high priority and high severity. It prevents or blocks testing of some other major portion of the application as well.

Ques.19. What is a critical bug?
Ans. A criticla bug is a bug that impacts a major functionality of the application and the application cannot be delivered without fixing the bug. It is different from blocker bug as it doesn’t affect or blocks the testing of other part of the application.

Ques.20. What is a test plan?
Ans. A test plan is a formal document describing the scope of testing, the approach to be used, resources required and time estimate of carrying out the testing process.

Ques.21. What is a test scenario?
Ans. A test scenario is a high level documentation for a use case. A single test scenario can cater multiple test cases.

Ques.22. What is a test case?
Ans. A test case is set of conditions with given pre-requisites, input values and expected results in a documented form which covers a particular test scenario.

Ques.23. What are some attributes of a Test case?
Ans. A test case can have following attributes-

TestCaseId – A unique identifier of the test case.
Test Summary – Oneliner summary of the test case.
Description – Detailed description of the test case.
Prerequisite or pre-condition – A set of prerequisites that must be followed before executing the test steps.
Test Steps – Detailed steps for performing the test case.
Expected result – The expected result in order to pass the test.
Actual result – The actual result after executing the test steps.
Test Result – Pass/Fail status of the test execution.
Automation Status – Identifier of automation – whether the application is automated or not.
Date – The test execution date.
Executed by – Name of the person executing the test case.

Ques.24. What are some Defect Reporting attributes?
Ans. Some of the attributes of a Defect resport are-

Defect Summary
Defect Description
Steps to reproduce
Expected Result
Actual Result
Defect Severity

Ques.25. What is a test script?
Ans. A test script is an automated test case written in any programming langauge.

ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9 Performance evaluation

December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9 Performance evaluation

ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9 Performance evaluation is all about measuring and evaluating your EMS to ensure that it is effective and it helps you to continually improve. You will need to consider what should be measured, the methods employed and when data should be analysed and reported on. As a general recommendation, organizations should determine what information they need to evaluate environmental performance and effectiveness. Once the EMS is implemented, ISO 14001 requires permanent monitoring of the system as well as periodic reviews to:

evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented EMS
objectively evaluate how well the minimal requirements of the standard are fulfilled
verify the extent to which the organizational, stakeholder, and legal requirements have been met;
review the suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency of the EMS;
demonstrate that planning has been successfully implemented;
assess the performance of processes;
determine the need or opportunities for improvements within the environmental management system.

Internal audits will need to be carried out, and there are certain “audit criteria” that are defined to ensure that the results of these audits are reported to relevant management. Finally, management reviews will need to be carried out and “documented information” must be kept as evidence.

Clause 9 Performance evaluation has three sub clause

9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation

9.1.1 General

The organization must monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate its environmental performance. It must determine what needs to be monitored and measured and as applicable the methods for monitoring,measurement, analysis and evaluation to ensure valid results. It must determine the criteria against which environmental‘ performance, and its appropriate indicators will be evaluated. It must also determine when the monitoring and measuring shall be performed and when the results from monitoring and measurement will be analysed and evaluated. The organization must ensure that calibrated or verified monitoring and measurement equipment is used and maintained, as appropriate. The organization must also evaluate its environmental performance and the effectiveness of the environmental management system.The organization must communicate relevant environmental performance information both internally and externally, as identified in its communication processes and as required by its compliance obligations. The organization must retain appropriate documented information as evidence of the monitoring, measurement analysis and evaluation results.

As per Annex A (Guidance on use of ISO 9001:2015 standard) of ISO 9001:2015 standard it further explains:

When determining what should be monitored and measured, In addition to progress on environmental objectives, the organization should take into account its significant environmental aspects, compliance obligations and operational controls. The methods used by the organization to monitor and measure, analyse and evaluate should be defined in the environmental management system, in order to ensure that:

the timing of monitoring and measurement is coordinated with the need for analysis and evaluation results;
the results of monitoring and measurement are reliable, reproducible and traceable;
the analysis and evaluation are reliable and reproducible, and enable the organization to report trends.

The environmental performance analysis and evaluation results should be reported to those with responsibility and authority to initiate appropriate action.

Explanation:

An EMS without effective monitoring and measurement processes is like driving at night without the headlights on — you know that you are moving but you can’t tell where you are going.Monitoring in the sense of ISO 14001 means that the organization should check, review, inspect and observe its planned activities to ensure that they are occurring as intended. Monitoring generally means operating processes that can check whether something is happening as intended or planned. In some respects auditing processes address this, but also operational control procedures will apply. Thus if an operational control states that housekeeping audits will occur twice weekly then this is a monitoring process, i.e. the site is checked weekly for ‘good housekeeping practices’. This could also involve ‘visual’ checking of the integrity of bunding around solvent storage tanks for example. Measurement tends to mean that the size or magnitude of an event is measured, calculated or estimated with a numerical value assigned. This could include procedures for weighing wastes sent to landfill; amount of gas or electricity consumed per week, measuring noise levels at the site boundary etc. Additionally, any equipment used to calculate or estimate such numbers should be suitably calibrated so that a high level of confidence is gained that the numbers are indeed a true representation of the facts. Monitoring and measurement help you:

evaluate environmental performance;
analyze root causes of problems;
assess compliance with legal requirements;
identify areas requiring corrective action, and,
improve performance and increase efficiency.

In short, monitoring and measurement helps you manage your organization better. The results of pollution prevention and other efforts are easier to demonstrate when current and reliable data are available. These data can help you demonstrate the value of the EMS to top management. Your organization should develop means to:

Monitor key characteristics of operations and activities that can have significant environmental impacts and/or compliance consequences;
Track performance (including your progress in achieving objectives and targets);
Calibrate and maintain monitoring equipment; and,
Through internal audits, periodically evaluate your compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Example of Links between Significant Aspects, Objectives, Operational Controls, and Monitoring and Measurement

Significant Aspect	Objective	Operational Control	Monitoring and Measurement
Anti corrosive paint X	Maintain compliance	Coating and thinning procedure Paint application work instruction (WI) Bulk storage WI and containment WI	Compliance audit Regulatory reporting EMS audits
Non-abated emission of VOCs	Reduce VOC emissions	VOC – reduction EMP	VOC volume reduction tracking metric EMS audits Solid waste
Solid waste from unmasking process	Investigate potential for reduction	Solid waste reduction EMP	Waste reduction tracking metric EMS audits

Monitoring Key Characteristics

Many management theorists endorse the concept of the “vital few” — that is, that a limited number of factors can have a substantial impact on the outcome of a process. The key is to figure out what those factors are and how to measure them.Most effective environmental monitoring and measurement systems use a combination of process and outcome measures. Select a combination of process and outcome measures that are right for your organization.

Outcome measures look at results of a process or activity, such as the amount of waste generated or the number of spills that took place.
Process measures look at “upstream” factors, such as the amount of paint used per unit of product or the number of employees trained on a topic.

Tracking Performance

To have a successful EMS, it is important to determine program measurement criteria. Determining measurement criteria, also called performance indicators , will help you evaluate the success of your overall EMS program. Performance indicators measure overall success, while key characteristic indicators measure progress against EMS objectives for specific SEAs.These performance indicators focus on how well the overall system for improving environmental management is functioning. Select performance indicators that will help you and your employees decide whether success has been achieved or whether improvement in procedures needs to be made. It is easier for
management and staff to understand how things are going if they have benchmarks as guidelines. You will need performance indicators that describe how well your environmental policy is being implemented. In addition, you will need performance indicators for all of the various components of your EMS. The measurement criteria selected for each component of your EMS will probably be different. For example, how will you measure the success of communication, documentation, stakeholder outreach, or training programs?
One approach is to measure the actions, for example, number of meetings held with stakeholders, number of documents created, number of employees trained, or number of hours of training. Action, however, does not always mean results. Consider the objective of each EMS component and define a way to measure results so that you would feel satisfied that the objectives are being achieved. Here are some examples of EMS results Performance Indicators for your EMS or various program components that can be tracked over time:

number of SEAs included in environmental projects plan
number of environmental objectives and targets met
pounds of hazardous waste generated per unit of production
employee sick leave absences related to work environment
percentage of employees completing environmental training
average time for resolving corrective action
energy or water use per unit of production
percentage of solid waste recycled/reused
number of complaints from community; number of responses to complaints
number of pollution prevention ideas generated from employees
resources used per unit of product or service
pollution (by type) generated per unit of product or service
percentage of products for which life cycle assessment has been conducted
number of products which have a recycling program
number of instances of non-compliance

It is the results shown by these environmental performance indicators that will become the basis for your plans for next year and for documenting continuous improvement. Measuring pollution prevention achievements is part of tracking performance, but may be different from, and often more difficult than, measuring environmental achievements in general. Simply measuring the reduction in a waste stream might mean only that the waste has been transferred to another medium, not reduced. It is therefore important to measure the reduction at the source of waste generation. It may also be important to measure the activities that your company directs towards pollution prevention. The following sources of information may help you track pollution prevention:

Permit applications
TRI reports
Purchasing records
Utility bills
Hazardous waste manifests
Material Safety Data Sheets

In addition, administrative procedures can be established to support pollution prevention activities. Your facility should consider:

Establishing procedures in each facility area for identifying pollution prevention opportunities.
Having a chemical or raw material inventory system in place.
Assessing how many objectives have been met through pollution prevention.

Sample of Environmental Performance Indicators Log

Types of Environmental performance indicators (EPIs)

Management performance indicators (MPIs): policy, people, planning activities, practice, procedures, decisions and actions in the organization
Operational performance indicators (OPIs): inputs, the supply of inputs, the design, installation, operation and maintenance of the physical facilities and equipment, outputs and their delivery
Environmental condition indicators (ECIs): Provide information about the local, regional, national or global
condition of the environment It help an organization to better understand the actual impact or potential impact of its environmental aspects and assist in the planning and implementation of the EPE

Examples of performance indicators and metrics

Checklist for creating Monitoring and measurement element of your EMS

Calibrating Equipment

A component of monitoring and measurement is equipment calibration. Your facility should identify process equipment and activities that affect your environmental performance. As a starting point, look at those key process characteristics you identified earlier. For monitoring and measurement you can:

measure the equipment itself (for example, measuring the paint flow rate through a flow gun to see if it is within the optimal range for transfer efficiency) or
you can add measurement equipment to a process to help measure the key characteristic (for example, a thermometer on a plating bath to make sure that the temperature is within the optimal range for plating quality to reduce the need for replating which causes significant waste through product rework).

Some organizations place critical monitoring equipment under a special calibration and preventive maintenance program. This can help to ensure accurate monitoring and make employees aware of which instruments are most critical for environmental monitoring purposes. Some organizations find it is more cost-effective to subcontract calibration and maintenance of monitoring equipment than to perform these functions internally. An illustration of how calibration needs are tied to SEAs, operational controls, key characteristics of the operation, and monitoring and measurement methods is presented belowSample of Calibration Log

Step involved in Monitoring and Measurement

Monitoring and measuring can be a resource- intensive effort. One of the most important steps you can take is to clearly define your needs . While collecting meaningful information is clearly important, resist the urge to collect data “for data’s sake.”
Review the kinds of monitoring you do now for regulatory compliance and other purposes (such as quality or health and safety management). How well might this serve your EMS purposes? What additional monitoring or measuring might be needed?
You can start with a relatively simple monitoring and measurement process, then build on it as you gain experience with your EMS. Its better to measure less items consistently, than to measure many items inconsistently.
Regulatory compliance: Determining your compliance status on a regular basis is very important. You should have a procedure to systematically identify, correct, and prevent violations. Effectiveness of the compliance assessment process should be considered during EMS management review.
Operational performance: Consider what information you will need to determine whether the company is implementing operational controls as intended.
9.3 Management review

Top management must review the organization’s environmental management system, at planned intervals, to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. The management review must include consideration of the status of actions from previous management reviews. It must also include changes in external and internal issues that are relevant to the environmental management system, the needs and expectations of interested parties, including compliance obligations; its significant environmental aspects; risks and opportunities; the extent to which environmental objectives have been achieved. The Management review must take into consideration adequacy of resources and relevant communication from interested parties, including complaints. The management review must include information on the organization’s environmental performance, including trends in
- nonconformity and corrective actions;
- monitoring and measurement results;
- fulfillment of its compliance obligations;
- audit results;
It must also take into consideration the opportunities for continual improvement. The outputs of the management review must include
- conclusions on the continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the environmental management system;
- decisions related to continual improvement opportunities;
- decisions related to any need for changes to the environmental management system, including resources;
- actions, if needed, when environmental objectives have not been achieved;
- opportunities to improve integration of the environmental management system with other business processes, it needed;
- any implications for the strategic direction of-the organization.
The organization must retain documented information as evidence of the results of management reviews.

As per Annex A (Guidance on use of ISO 9001:2015 standard) of ISO 9001:2015 standard it further explains:

The management review should be high-level; it does not need to be an exhaustive review of detailed information. The management review topics need not be addressed all at once. The review may take place over a period of time and can be part of regularly scheduled management activities, such as board or operational meetings; it does not need to be a separate activity. Relevant complaints received from interested parties are reviewed by top management to determine opportunities for improvement. “Suitability” refers to how the environmental management system fits the organization its Operations, culture and business systems. “Adequacy” refers to whether it meets the ISO 14001:2015 requirements and is implemented appropriately. “Effectiveness” refers to whether it is achieving the desired results.

Explanation:

ISO 14001 requires that the organization’s top management shall, at planned intervals that it determines, review the environmental management system to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. Again, common sense dictates that once a system is implemented, there should be a review process to test whether what was planned does happen in reality. Just as a person should have periodic physical exams, your EMS must be reviewed by management from time to time to stay “healthy.” Management reviews are the key to continual improvement and to ensuring that the EMS will continue to meet your organization’s needs over time. Management reviews also offer a great opportunity to keep your EMS efficient and cost-effective. For example, some organizations have found that certain procedures and processes initially put in place were not needed to achieve their environmental objectives or control key processes. If EMS procedures and other activities don’t add value, eliminate them. The key question that a management review seeks to answer is: “Is the system working? i.e., is the EMS suitable, adequate and effective, given our needs?”

ISO 14001:2004 standard sets out what is required from an organization in terms of management review, and what input and output criteria need to be satisfied to demonstrate the organization’s commitment to continual improvement. As you would expect, defining targets and objectives is also a staple of this initial management review process, and an organization’s top management team should play a key role in this, but the increased emphasis on leadership in the 2015 standard means that top management will be expected to understand and be able to talk about how the EMS is measured and improved, and how effective this has been. Therefore, an increased focus on having accurate, meaningful, and sustainable targets and objectives will arise. An increased expectation of demonstrable and measureable leadership will be expected from the ISO 14001:2015 auditor.An organization’s top management team must now take extra care in setting out its environmental targets, objectives, and authorities within the business. Can the team demonstrate leadership throughout the process, from target setting, through communication to delivery and review of performance, finally ensuring that continual improvement is possible and indeed delivered? Are all employees and stakeholders aware of the objectives and what must be done to achieve them? Formalizing these processes by recording them at your management review will help you. Sharing your management review minutes with your team and stakeholders will also help you. Everyone can then be aware that the top management team is clear on its objectives, clear on its responsibility toward achieving them, clear in providing the support and resources for the organization to achieve them, and clear in providing an EMS and support system where continual improvement can be achieved via an established review and feedback channel.

There is no correct way to perform an environmental management review – it must suit the organization’s culture and resources. As the Standard refers to ‘top’ management, this does indicate that a certain level of seniority of personnel should be present at such reviews, to demonstrate commitment. There are two kinds of people who should be involved in the management review process: people who have the right information / knowledge and people who can make decisions. Determine the frequency for management reviews that will work best for your organization. Some organizations combine these reviews with other meetings such as director meetings while other organizations hold “stand-alone” reviews. For ISO 9000 purposes, management reviews are typically held once or twice per year. Regardless of what approach your organization takes, make sure that someone takes notes on what issues were discussed, what decisions were arrived at, and what action items were selected. Management reviews should be documented. The management review should assess how changing circumstances might influence the suitability, effectiveness or adequacy of your EMS. Changing circumstances may be internal to your organization i.e., new facilities, new materials, changes in products or services, new customers, etc. or may be external factors such as new laws, new scientific information, or changes in adjacent land use

There are certain minimum areas to be reviewed and one option, used by most organizations, is to have a standard agenda for each meeting. The first point on the agenda should be a review of the Environmental Policy. This is the ‘driver’ for the whole system. Senior management should be able to examine it and say with confidence that what was planned (say 12 months ago) as stated in the policy, has occurred or that substantial progress has been made. Thus a typical agenda could be:
- Are the objectives stated in the Environmental Policy being met?
- Does the organization have the continuing capacity to identify environmental aspects?
- Does the system allow the organization to give a measure of significance to these aspects?
- Have the operational controls that were put in place achieved the desired levels of control?
- Are effective corrective actions taking place to ensure that where objectives are in danger of slippage, extra resources ensure a return to the planned time-scale?
- Are internal audits effective in identifying non-conformances?
- Is the environmental policy sufficiently robust for the forthcoming 12 months?
So, your top management team has set out its objectives, hopefully after a degree of employee consultation. The communication channel has been established; your stakeholders understand where the responsibilities lie, and know that the support is in place to work toward achieving these goals. Many organizations have one management review per year. Is this sufficient to ensure targets are achieved and continual improvement is seen? As long as you have a defined vehicle to ensure all the vital aspects are reviewed, actioned, and improved, the answer is “yes.” This may be a weekly or monthly EMS meeting, and you can formally record what you discuss and decide to action there. This will keep you true to the targets and objectives you set up at that management review meeting. But, we are all human and sometimes forget things. Many companies choose to show their environmental performance results in their foyer or reception areas, whether on noticeboards or electronically. These KPIs are usually formulated at your management review meeting – why not summarize the management review minutes accordingly, and display them too? Sometimes everyone needs reminding of what they are actually trying to achieve, and having a summary of these minutes is a very effective way of doing so – and maintaining everyone’s focus on them.It could be argued that during the early months of the implementation period (perhaps prior to certification) these cyclical reviews are not appropriate and they should focus on just the progress of the implementation of the system. This is a reasonable viewpoint but, as the system approaches maturity, a review as above is beneficial at intervals of 6 to 12 months. It would be prudent for the organization to perform one full management review, following the procedure, prior to the on-site audit, to demonstrate evidence of implementation to the certification body. If it is concluded that the set objectives are being met, the organization is well on its way to minimizing its significant environmental impacts and thus complying with the requirements of the Standard.

Questions to Ponder During Management Reviews
1. Did we achieve our objectives? (if not, why not?) Should we modify our objectives?
2. Is our environmental policy still relevant to what we do?
3. Are roles and responsibilities clear and do they make sense?
4. Are we applying resources appropriately?
5. Are the procedures clear and adequate? Do we need others? Should we eliminate some?
6. Are we monitoring our EMS (e.g., via system audits)? What do the results of those audits tell us?
7. What effects have changes in materials, products, or services had on our EMS and its effectiveness?
8. Do changes in laws or regulations require us to change some of our approaches?
9. What stakeholder concerns have been raised since our last review?
10. Is there a better way? What else can we do to improve?
Once you have documented the action items arising from your management review, be sure that someone follows-up. Progress on these items should be tracked. As you evaluate potential changes to your EMS, be sure to consider your other organizational plans and goals. Environmental decision-making should be integrated into your overall management and strategy

December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

Take the survey…

The objective of the survey is to collect opinions about the requirement analysis, test design and test estimation in Agile projects. A case study of an eCommerce website with three user stories are given and participants are asked about the requirement clarifications that are needed and how much testing they would plan for those user stories.

If you need any specific information about the current software testing industry or any related topic, contact us atsupport@testingalgorithms.com. We will conduct a survey and the corresponding statistical analysis on your behalf for free!

Rapid Test Automation with Zero coding: QARA Test Automation Suite from T/DG

December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

Rapid Test Automation with Zero coding: QARA Test Automation Suite from T/DG

The Digital Group (T/DG) has designed a systematic methodology by utilizing its extensive experience and research for rapidly implementing Test Automation Processes. We use this process to conduct software test automation for a variety of applications on web, desktop and mobile technologies.

QARA Advantage
– Keyword Driven Framework with user-friendly keywords
– Reduced dependencies on subject matter experts and tool experience
– Reduced test data setup time
– Increased quality and reliability
– Reduced defects and faster time to market
– Faster realization of ROI
– Increased flexibility to reach multiple target devices and browsers
– Significant cut down in regression and integration test cycles
– Reduced (nearly 60%) manual regression and testing efforts

7 Ways to Make Test Automation Effective in Agile Development

December 9, 2016December 9, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

While automating the testing process, there is a certain amount of collaborative effort required from everyone in the agile team. This is an important prerequisite to successful automation of the testing process. QA engineers need to keep a track on any task that has a repetition of more than two times within a short period of time. These tasks would all need to be automated, preferably with a well-known tool or open source code. The development of functional test automation is generally done by software developers in test, as they would be able to easily monitor the feature development.

Repetitive processes within a short span of time would often need to be quickly automated. However, owing to the amount of time involved in the automation process, it is still important to determine what tests precisely should be automated in the agile environment. Although the product owners may be able to immediately suggest points to automate, it also depends on developers working on the detailed code. Ultimately, the QA engineers would also be looking at opportunities that call for ad-hoc automation or on-the-fly automation, in order to increase the test coverage.

Test automation undoubtedly provides assistance during the application lifecycle. However, there are numerous challenges associated with test automation, if the process is not well thought-out beforehand. In this blog post, we examine seven processes that depict a clear picture of how to make test automation effective in agile development.

The Inception of Automation:
- Automated test scripts are created in a similar fashion to software code design. The software code being designed and tested involves a fair number of features. This requires a fair amount of coding and subsequent testing for the software to function robustly. It is best to develop the automated test scripts incrementally, just like the actual software application. It is essential to understand that a single test automation framework cannot be a reality, as too many elements factor into it.
- The return on investment (ROI) is a crucial factor that plays in developing the automated test cases. When ROI is not guaranteed, a bare minimum solution could begin the process. When the tests are slowly built, team members realize that they are working well and yielding results, especially by saving time and effort, there is scope to invest more and take automation more seriously.
Selective Automation:
- Immaterial of how many features a said framework may have, if the tests that are a part of its solution are not relevant, the entire effort is wasted. Ultimately, the framework cannot supersede the code. Although the idea of a state-of-the-art framework is extremely appealing, such obsession would ultimately defeat the purpose of timely effectiveness.
- In addition, automating tests for just the sake of automation is a complete waste of time, effort, and resource utilization. The amount of maintenance and the execution time are important factors that need to be considered prior to automation. All automated tests become an integral part of the software lifecycle and must be maintained an executed accordingly. Tests that are overly complex slowdown the feedback cycle and best be avoided.
Optimum Timing:
- In the agile environment, there are a number of iterations and there are continuous sets of sprints. Quality is a genuine concern under such circumstances, as several sprints finish in time but not with quality. These sprint backlogs make it difficult to devote time for the development, debugging and testing of each iteration.
- Due to these factors, it becomes crucial for the team to allocate appropriate time specifically for testing. Often, it is advisable for test automation to run in parallel to the software development stage, as this approach mitigates any foreseeable lags. This gives more scope to the QA engineers to develop efficient tests through exploratory search.
Client Test Coverage:
- Hypothetically speaking, having tools such as a DB dumper script can help paint a picture as to the amount of testing that is done for an application performing the basic function of sending emails. Such coverage analysis tools help QA engineers save time and effort through automatic reporting. In addition, these tools ensure that features required for testing are not left unattended.
- The ideas that consequently build, as further brainstorming is done, can lead to breakthroughs that change the testing pattern altogether. It is important to think broadly when it comes to test automation, rather than merely on test cases.
Regression Testing Automation:
- Regression testing is absolutely necessary to guarantee the functionality of the system. When quality test scripts are developed keeping in mind the concept of regression testing, it provides a great help in maintaining and monitoring the performance of the test scripts.
- Regression testing can then be run smoothly and without manual intervention. When the test scripts are developed with the concept of regression testing, the team would then be able to complete testing without numerous changes in the scripts.
All-round Visibility:
- Ensuring that the automation and associated processes are relatively simple and accessible, and making sure that the results of test automation are visible to all the stakeholders, is vital. Showcasing the trends, the statistics, and the overall code quality improvement can make all the difference when it comes to implementing more automation.
- Making such data visible allows resources to form a positive perspective on their own. This makes it simpler to update test scripts periodically, and guarantees collaborative effort through mutual cooperation.
Keep an eye out for the Developers:
- It is essential to keep an eye out for the developers and the general development environment. From machines to cloud simulations, software development comprises of a complete network right form the back-end system architecture to the front-end interactions, along with external applications.
- Bugs that are detected could be triggered due to any form of disconnection between the networks, configurations, or the like. It is essential to understand the functionality of the actual environment, in order to successfully perform root-cause analysis that yields in constructive solutions.

Conclusion
Cigniti Technologies understands that test automation helps accelerate regression test efforts in a cost effective manner, and allows constantly unattended execution. Cigniti’s test automation framework (CTAF) is a tool agnostic testing solution for validating complex business processes. CTAF uses a keyword driven approach to help non-technical users validate business processes. CTAF has delivered 30% improvement in productivity and 40% reduction in test maintenance efforts in numerous test automation engagements.

Testing, Inspection and Certification Market Introduces More Extensive Guidelines for High Growth Potential Industries: Professional Survey with Industry Analysis

October 10, 2016October 18, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

In the past few years, regulations pertaining to the quality of products and their overall impact on the health of consumers and that of the environment have become increasingly strict across the globe. International imports and exports of products from a number of industries have also significantly increased globally. So as to conform to the diverse quality and safety standards of foreign destinations, the adherence to effective testing, inspection, and certification measures has become critical for product manufacturers.

A number of countries have their own different sets of testing, inspection, and certification guidelines and standards. Regulations and standards are also often different for different product types or industries. The scenario makes the global testing, inspection, and certification market highly diversified. This defeats the whole purpose of having a product certified against a standard, for it may be considered a token of excellent quality in some countries and mean nothing in some other.

Sample For Guidelines with Industry Analysis @ http://bit.ly/2dvD6ii

Why automation testing is so important ?

October 10, 2016October 18, 2016 by manusaxena58, posted in Uncategorized

Why automation testing is so important ?

Nowadays everyone is looking for guys who can automate every test case. automation testing is replacing manual guys in the market who don’t know automation so I want to know what makes automation so important than manual? please share your thoughts.

Goa, was exactly how people said it to be..a beach for every kind of a person, an intoxicating night life, exotic food, surreal afternoons and a treasure cove- a find for every traveler.

How the solution of Testing Algorithms handles missing, unstable and changing requirements?

1. Missing Requirements

Option 1: Throw an error – “Please enter a non-null search string!”

Option 2: Show all books in search result

2. Unstable & Changing Requirements

Interview Q/A

ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9 Performance evaluation

ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9 Performance evaluation