Here at Borland, basic functional testing is the domain of the agile team that develops the functionality, while a dedicated QA team in Singapore is charged with performing what we refer to as enterprise testing–performance and scalability, integration, localization, etc.
This post outlines some of the changes that we’re implementing in regard to the enterprise testing group.
Before the company began the conversion to agile, the enterprise testing group in Singapore operated as a service organization: the group maintained its own testing infrastructure, had its own management structure, and generally had minimal and fairly formal contact with the R&D groups that it supported.
In the last few months, however, we’ve begun to change the working model that the enterprise testing group employs. Our goal is to integrate individual enterprise test engineers into the agile teams that they work with. This is more of a change in attitude and work habits than a change in corporate structure.
In the past, for instance, the managers of the enterprise test group could move around individual engineers as needed; the R&D groups they worked with never knew who was doing the enterprise testing work to start with, so they didn’t notice the changes. In the new model, however, the focus is on developing and maintaining long-term working relationships between the agile teams and the individual enterprise test engineers.
Another transformation is taking place in regard to reporting and communication. Previously, the R&D groups communicated primarily with the enterprise test managers. Now, of course, they interact directly with the test engineers who are doing the work for their team. And before, the enterprise test group published formal results at the end of their project. Now, they report status daily to the agile teams.
More to come in future posts…