Quality is delighting customers
Local software testers join push to improve training, standards
Software is all around us. It’s in our cars, our cellphones, the stop lights, our airplanes, and our hospitals.
"It’s in government systems, the banks, and more," says Iain McCowatt, president of the Atlantic Association for Software Quality Assurance.
"And you would hope that someone somewhere has tested it to make sure that it’s safe and secure. When you hand somebody your credit card number, for instance, you hope that no one can get their hands on it and shop in your name."
Unfortunately, history is littered with software disasters that are far worse than identity theft or Internet fraud.
In 1985, three U.S. and Canadian cancer patients died due to software design flaws in a radiation treatment machine.
In 2001, five Panamanian cancer patients died from overdoses of radiation because of faulty software.
A Korean jet with software problems in the radar system crashed in 1997, killing 225 people, and in 1995 an American Airlines flight crashed in Colombia, killing 159 people, because the software presented conflicting information to pilots who got lost.
A software failure also contributed to the massive 2003 blackout across the northeastern U.S. and Canada.
When it comes to software, anything can go wrong depending on the context in which it’s being used.
McCowatt, who’s been testing software for 13 years in the U.K. and Canada, says every company has its own approach.
"There are pockets of excellent practice in various places and there’s also naive testing going along that puts companies and individuals at financial risk, and in other cases there could be risks to safety and identity," says McCowatt.
"Many testers are self-taught and a very tiny percentage of them are actually certified. About 600 testers in Canada are certified.
"Many companies apply the warm body approach to testing and get someone that doesn’t necessarily have any testing theory, knowledge or experience just because they’re available."
On the other hand, there are many software testers who would like to learn more, but don’t know where to start. McCowatt founded the software association in May with a group of about 40 software testers in Halifax in an effort to share good practices and help testers network so they can learn more about their trade. They also intend on offering training seminars and other presentations.
"Outside of this," says McCowatt, "we hope to help testers who are interested in gaining certification through the Canadian Software Testing Board."
Janet Cooper, a Halifax software tester with an insurance company based in Bermuda, is one association member who is planning on getting certified.
"Currently, there’s not a lot of training for testers available in the HRM and it’s still fairly new," says Cooper.
"Most people have to go out of the province, do it online or self-study, which is one of the reasons why AASQA is trying to get some of the training programs into Halifax. We want to provide this to local companies and promote awareness of testing as a career path."
Unfortunately, says Cooper, software testing is often seen as a last step in the process to make sure everything looks OK.
"Sometimes companies don’t realize the business impact there could be if there are defects in the software," she says.
"If there’s one simple little mistake, it could end up costing a company millions of dollars. If you have an online system for buying anything, for example, and there was a mistake in the system where you could buy an item for $500 instead of $5,000, this is the type of stuff we have to be checking for — little things that end up costing them millions of dollars."
Cliff Andrews, a software tester with Cobham Surveillance, says he learned to test while working at Nortel, which had a very stringent, process-oriented testing system. Over the years he’s been testing, he has come across software bugs that resulted in data loss, corruption, system failures, and more.
"However, due to the efforts of testers and developers, these bugs were corrected and we delivered quality product to our customers as a result," says Andrews.
"Without a thorough and well-planned test cycle, many such defects could have reached the end user."
Andrews says Nortel had a very well thought out set of processes to make sure its communications products worked properly.
"When we tested that stuff, it went way beyond what it had to do," says Andrews.
"Some companies say they deliver high-quality products and then you realize they don’t even have their own testers. Companies should realize that testing is cheaper in the long run because finding a bug early in the development phase is a lot cheaper than having it found in the field by a customer."
Cooper says she got involved with the association because she had a lot of questions when she was starting out as a tester and had no one to talk to about them.
"There’s not a lot of resources for the profession and the main reason for AASQA is to get people talking to each other to learn more about the field," she says.
"We’re also interested in starting up a mentorship program, so if you have a question we can arrange for you to talk to someone.
"Quality assurance is such a broad field you can’t be an expert on every area. This will bring people in the profession together."
’Currently, there’s not a lot of training for testers available in the HRM and it’s still fairly new.’
-JANET COOPERHalifax-based software tester
Source from: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1141276.html
"It’s in government systems, the banks, and more," says Iain McCowatt, president of the Atlantic Association for Software Quality Assurance.
"And you would hope that someone somewhere has tested it to make sure that it’s safe and secure. When you hand somebody your credit card number, for instance, you hope that no one can get their hands on it and shop in your name."
Unfortunately, history is littered with software disasters that are far worse than identity theft or Internet fraud.
In 1985, three U.S. and Canadian cancer patients died due to software design flaws in a radiation treatment machine.
In 2001, five Panamanian cancer patients died from overdoses of radiation because of faulty software.
A Korean jet with software problems in the radar system crashed in 1997, killing 225 people, and in 1995 an American Airlines flight crashed in Colombia, killing 159 people, because the software presented conflicting information to pilots who got lost.
A software failure also contributed to the massive 2003 blackout across the northeastern U.S. and Canada.
When it comes to software, anything can go wrong depending on the context in which it’s being used.
McCowatt, who’s been testing software for 13 years in the U.K. and Canada, says every company has its own approach.
"There are pockets of excellent practice in various places and there’s also naive testing going along that puts companies and individuals at financial risk, and in other cases there could be risks to safety and identity," says McCowatt.
"Many testers are self-taught and a very tiny percentage of them are actually certified. About 600 testers in Canada are certified.
"Many companies apply the warm body approach to testing and get someone that doesn’t necessarily have any testing theory, knowledge or experience just because they’re available."
On the other hand, there are many software testers who would like to learn more, but don’t know where to start. McCowatt founded the software association in May with a group of about 40 software testers in Halifax in an effort to share good practices and help testers network so they can learn more about their trade. They also intend on offering training seminars and other presentations.
"Outside of this," says McCowatt, "we hope to help testers who are interested in gaining certification through the Canadian Software Testing Board."
Janet Cooper, a Halifax software tester with an insurance company based in Bermuda, is one association member who is planning on getting certified.
"Currently, there’s not a lot of training for testers available in the HRM and it’s still fairly new," says Cooper.
"Most people have to go out of the province, do it online or self-study, which is one of the reasons why AASQA is trying to get some of the training programs into Halifax. We want to provide this to local companies and promote awareness of testing as a career path."
Unfortunately, says Cooper, software testing is often seen as a last step in the process to make sure everything looks OK.
"Sometimes companies don’t realize the business impact there could be if there are defects in the software," she says.
"If there’s one simple little mistake, it could end up costing a company millions of dollars. If you have an online system for buying anything, for example, and there was a mistake in the system where you could buy an item for $500 instead of $5,000, this is the type of stuff we have to be checking for — little things that end up costing them millions of dollars."
Cliff Andrews, a software tester with Cobham Surveillance, says he learned to test while working at Nortel, which had a very stringent, process-oriented testing system. Over the years he’s been testing, he has come across software bugs that resulted in data loss, corruption, system failures, and more.
"However, due to the efforts of testers and developers, these bugs were corrected and we delivered quality product to our customers as a result," says Andrews.
"Without a thorough and well-planned test cycle, many such defects could have reached the end user."
Andrews says Nortel had a very well thought out set of processes to make sure its communications products worked properly.
"When we tested that stuff, it went way beyond what it had to do," says Andrews.
"Some companies say they deliver high-quality products and then you realize they don’t even have their own testers. Companies should realize that testing is cheaper in the long run because finding a bug early in the development phase is a lot cheaper than having it found in the field by a customer."
Cooper says she got involved with the association because she had a lot of questions when she was starting out as a tester and had no one to talk to about them.
"There’s not a lot of resources for the profession and the main reason for AASQA is to get people talking to each other to learn more about the field," she says.
"We’re also interested in starting up a mentorship program, so if you have a question we can arrange for you to talk to someone.
"Quality assurance is such a broad field you can’t be an expert on every area. This will bring people in the profession together."
’Currently, there’s not a lot of training for testers available in the HRM and it’s still fairly new.’
-JANET COOPERHalifax-based software tester
Source from: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1141276.html
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