How to manage a distributed test organization Niklas Andersson Quality Assurance Manager May 19 th 2011 How to fail with your distributed Test organization Rev Copyright © Open Text Corporation. All rights reserved.

Quality Assurance Manager Rev How to fail with your distributed Test organization Niklas Andersson Copyright © Open Text Corporation. All rights reserved.

Agenda  Background  Pre-requisites / Challenges  How did we do it?  How did QA do it?  What have we gained?  What have we learned?  How to fail with your distributed Test organization... 3

Background... 4 Niklas Andersson, QA Manager StreamServe/OpenText

What is StreamServe? 5

6 TIP: Consider doing a presentation with titles only - Intelligent Output - Bringing Documents to Life - How Does Your Company Present Itself?

What is OpenText? 7

ECM Technology Areas Media Management File System Archiving Markup & Redaction Document Publishing Case Management Legal Case Assessment Data Archiving Document Archiving Digital Rights Management eSign Collaboration Social Media Web Experience Management Portal Document & Image Viewing Controlled Revision Tracking Engineering Document Management Transmittals Advance State Management Campaign Management Reporting & Analytics Invoice Management Contracts Management Customer Billing Management Customer Communications Mgmt Supplier Information Management Employee Information Management Federated Search Semantic Search Knowledge Management Imaging & Capture Batch Print Legacy System Decommissioning Legal Information Management Forms Management Document Management Records Management Management Workflow Engagement Lifecycle Transaction

StreamServe / OpenText 9

Gothenburg: 1 QA Manager 1 Autotest Manager 6 QA Engineers 10 Stockholm: 2 QA Engineers (1 Localization Manager) Prague: 2 QA Engineers Lviv: 5 QA Engineers (1 Team Leader) => 17 resources Project Model: Our ”own” but based on DSDM and XP

Challenges at the time...  Decision made by “Upper Management”  “Bad times”  Three experienced QA colleagues left  The “Signals”  Distributed organization  Prior experiences  QA Engineer / Tester as a profession  The Project Model 12

How did we do it? 13

How did we do it? Location, location, location… 14 Lviv: ~ residents (Ukraine: 46,5) GMT+2 University city Complicated history

How did we do it? Responsible Manager on-site... Apartment Work from there Socializing Only doing this Find the right people... Key personnel Entrepreneurs => Managers Connect the ”right” people Language! Technical aids... Video, Msn, Mail, Webex ”Mi net – su net”

How did we do it? Trial period / Evaluation project… Stage 1: 3 Engineers, 1 Lead Stage 2: 5 Engineers and 2 QA Engineers Stage ”Today”: Approx Developers Architects QA CM Support Consultants

How did QA do it? 17

How did QA do it? The goal... Solve the resource ”situation” in the most ”efficient” way Stage 1… 2 QA Engineers Mentorship ”Simple tests” Stage 2… 1 Team Leader (50%) 3 QA Engineers Test domains

How did QA do it? Stage 3 (now)... 1 Team Leader 4 QA Engineers (all certified) Test Management More ”Advanced” test Test domains Automated tests Future Increased responsibility Autotest unit? Own projects/releases?

How did QA do it? Daily/Weekly work... Communication! Make use of the technical aids Day-to-day Weekly meetings ”The Friday mail” Monthly meetings Involvment Make people grow – Right tasks at the right time! Delegate with responsibility Follow up Travel! Central Test repository ”Mi net – su net”

So what have we gained? 21 = INCREASED QUALITY! Increased bandwidth Increased test coverage Variation of our own work Better focus Better maintenance New friends

And what have we learned? 22 Have a plan but don´t be afraid to re-plan Don´t start with Exploratory testing Efficiency will drop...at first People are different and the same Follow up Don´t see it as a ”Manager thing” Empower people Communication is the key You have to be there

23 So, how do I fail? 2. See it as a ”selfplaying” piano 5. Communicate as little as possible 6. Never ever empower people 9. See it as a burden 7. Make sure that ”they” are not a part of the daily work 10. MAKE SURE NOT TO HAVE FUN! 10. MAKE SURE NOT TO HAVE FUN! 1. Kilroy was not here! 4. See it as a short term solution 3. Pick a location as far as possible 8. Do not measure and evaluate

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Thank You 25