Articles about planning software testing and managing it.
Point of views:
As more and more projects become agile, reporting has to support agile work environment. I use predictions in project reporting. Before each project phase I make a progress prediction and compare it to a real time progress percentage.
Why I do this:
An example of definition phase progress prediction and readiness
Usually the progress percentage is calculated from activity progress. All change requests are reported separately.
I include all unplanned activities like open issues in my calculations as well.
Why I do this: Going through every issue takes time. I use an estimate of 2.5hrs per issue –> If there are 50 open issues in a project, work hours come up to around 125hrs.
When making a prediction I always estimate the work load for open issues. I make sure that the project has the capacity to solve problems.
Below is an example of how to use predictions to your benefit in testing. This is how I made the prediction:
When the testing started, we followed the realisation compared to the prediction. Testing started as planned. During the first few weeks the number of defects started to grow.
-> Getting tests ready was getting slow. Going through defects and retesting was taking a lot of time. Defects were preventing many test cases from being tested.
In this case, the larger number of defects than what was estimated, was because two areas were not as ready as reported. Well, what was the benefit of making predictions then?
Well communicated prediction steers people to work according to plan. If you announce that we are 5% late from our goal that week, people start to think what tasks could be done to make that goal.
Another clear benefit is that making predictions requires careful planning. Before you publish and communicate your graphs, you actually have to have your plan well thought out and monitoring set to place.
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