Reporting

The SQA team lead produces a formal test plan which is submitted to the project team for validation and information. Input is solicited for the understanding of requirements, so that the plan can accurately reflect the testing which will be required. Because of the variances between Development teams' style of disseminating feature, function scope and definition, the amount of information available is not always consistent. The SQA lead attempts to establish a good working relationship with the Development team, so that questions can be asked and comprehensive, identical understanding of the product will exist. The lead also pairs a QA engineer with a development counter part to facilitate day to day interaction.

SQA engineers produce status sheets for distribution to the members of the product teams. The data on the status sheets have included: features, functions, time estimated to test, time consumed and amount of testing yet to be done, the last has proved to be too subjective. Some test engineers include the staff assigned to specific testing and the percentage complete. The later is difficult to estimate due to the iterative process, as feature and function specifics change often and rapidly during the development cycle, as they are refined. The evolving report, which appears to give the most information, is one which lists the features, the build in which they were tested or re-tested and the pass or fail status of the test.

SQA provides monitoring of the defects which appear in the product, through the use of QA designed Flashboards (graphical representations of the aggregate numbers of defects) and reports. The defects found in the product are recorded in an Bug Tracking database, where the information is made available to the development group. Information stored in the database then provides statistical and trend analysis for defect find rates and product areas. This information is compared to that presented by the Development team and the Product team. Customer support is kept abreast of these defects and influences the priority assigned to the defect by the team.

Team leads have established directories for their products in which test plans and weekly status reports have been posted. These are updated weekly by the team lead and reviewed by the manager and linked or posted to the QA home page on the intranet.

QA managers work with their teams to assess better forms and methods of information dissemination. These reviewed with the larger engineering and project teams so that the teams feel they understand the scope of work to be done by SQA and the status of a project currently being tested.