The problem I’m trying to solve at the moment is to create visibility of our testing and processes to other areas of the business support, customer success managers, technical managers). I feel they have a sense of frustration because customers have issues and then they feel they could have been prevented or that we’re not doing anything about it (which is not the case at all).
What I’m thinking is to make our release test plans more public. Share the lessons learned sessions on our escaped bugs with them?!
Have you got any other ideas? Got anything that seems to work well at your company?
My experiennces with:
• test plans. It is interesting for the project managers and users because of planning and budget. Sometimes the test strategy was actually read.
• weekly status reports. 4 pages are not read, but scanned. Even using a 2 page report using PRINCEII information is briefly scanned.
• test strategy workshops. These had a lot of impact. All stakeholders were involved. In one case I converted it to a mindmap which I actively used.
• daily standups. The best ones are focused on the target audience and takes a maximum of 10 minutes in total. In the business standup software development terms are avoided. Any discussions are postponed after the standup. The same for long answers on questions.
• hallway encounters. They were handy, if I made some short remarks about testing.
• ad hoc meetings. Really powerful, if I had a clear request.
• prototyping. During a demo the business could not specify, what they needed. I planned a meeting and sketched some possible solutions with them. This was really appreciated.
• user acceptance tests. The involved testers had contacts with the business. These tests increased the visibility of testing.
• deployment meetings. During these meetings I talked with different stakeholders, how to deploy new software. Also, who would communicate which information to the users using which channels? In one performance review this was highly praised. I have some blog posts, if you are interested.
• retrospectives on testing. I asked for things, which went well, and things, which could be improved. This was helpful to improve the relationship.