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Tag Archives: Metrics & Measures

Meaningful Measures

Sunday, March 21, 2010

I arrived in Switzerland on Monday morning and met with our team here in Zurich who work on the communication server. Tuesday I presented a tutorial on advanced combinatorial testing and delivered a keynote address at Swiss Testing Days on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I really didn’t get to spend a lot of time exploring the city, [...]

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Code Coverage: More Than Just a Number

Thursday, January 21, 2010

When I was growing up I would sometimes go down into my grandfather’s basement. He had amassed a variety of tools during his lifetime and he was an excellent wood craftsman. I wasn’t allowed to touch any of the power tools, because his rule was, “if you don’t know how to use a tool properly [...]

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Measuring Test Automation ROI

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Originally Published Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I just finished reading Implementing Automated Software Testing by E.Dustin, T. Garrett, and B. Gauf and overall this is a good read providing some well thought out arguments for beginning an automation project, and provides strategic perspectives to manage a test automation project. The first chapter made several excellent points [...]

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Assessing Tester Performance

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Originally Published Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Using context-free software product measures as personal performance indicators (KPI) is about as silly as pet rocks!
Periodically a discussion of assessing tester performance surfaces on various discussion groups. Some people offer advice such as counting bugs (or some derivation thereof), number of tests written in x amount of time, [...]

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Are Software Metrics and Measurements Really Important?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Originally Published Monday, November 20, 2006
On a recent flight back from Boston to Seattle I decided to read Measuring the Software Process: A practical guide to functional measurements by David Garmus and David Herron. The book does a really good job of explaining functional points, what they are, how to identify them, and how to [...]

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Test Effectiveness

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Originally Published Friday, October 13, 2006
Boris Biezer stated black box testing was approximately 35 to 65% effective. I had also read that Gerald Weinberg conducted studies at IBM with similar results. I recently spoke at the SQS conference in London and in the opening presentation Bob Barlett stated that SQS studies indicated that formal test [...]

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Software Metrics: Guidelines for Establishing Effective Measurement Programs

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

One of the most important artifacts we produce as testers are measures of the software product or processes. Many people scoff at metrics, but there is little doubt management team wants to see numbers. But, the true value of an effective measurement program is not simply the numbers by themselves, it is the ability of [...]

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Bug Counts as Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for Testers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Originally Published Monday, June 26, 2006
Every once in awhile I meet testers who say their manager rates individual performance based on bug metrics. It is no secret that management is constantly looking at bug metrics. But, bug numbers are generally a poor indication of any direct meaningful measure, especially individual human performance. Yet, some managers [...]

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