QAAC 1 Metrics: A Path for Success Kim Mahoney, QA Manager, The Hartford

QAAC 2 Session objectives: to leave this room with knowledge of metrics and be able to apply these learning’s to achieve success in your organization. 2

QAAC 3 Success My definition of success is: – Test case pass rates > 70% – Test environment availability/stability > 90% – Requirements are stable with minimal changes – No defects leaked into production – Root causes of defects tell a story 3 What is yours?

QAAC 4 Agenda What metrics to use in my organization? Where to get the data to create the metric? Key metrics for ensuring successes  Test case pass rate  Defect leakage into production  Requirements stability index  Test environment availability  Root cause of defects  Test effort variance  Error discovery rate  Automation script results How can metrics pave a path to success? 4

QAAC 5 What metrics to use in my organization? 5

QAAC 6 What do you want to gauge? Quality of code deploys Environment stability What do you want to determine? Go/no-go decisions Quality of requirements What makes sense? Not all metrics make sense for every project Who to distribute to? Distribute to folks who can do something about it! 6 What metrics to use in my organization?

QAAC 7 Where to get the data? 7

QAAC 8 Testing Tool  Test case execution results  Defects & root cause information  Production defects  Automation results Requirements Tool  Requirements changes Time Tracking Tool  Actual effort Vendor Partner  Environmental information 8 Where to get the data to create the metric?

QAAC 9 Key metrics for ensuring successes 9

QAAC 10 Test Case Pass Rate 10

QAAC 11 Test case pass rate What is your target pass rate in your organization? Pass rate = # test cases passed / # test cases executed Sample: 238 test cases passed / 278 test cases executed = 86% pass rate What can be learned from this 86%? 11

QAAC 12 Test Case Pass Rate con’t 86% pretty good, but…. What if the 14% that is failing is the most critical part of the system? What if this is the last cycle of testing and 14% of those test cases cannot be fixed before production? What was the project goal’s pass rate? 12

QAAC 13 Test Case Pass Rate con’t How to use test pass rate? Comparing cycle to cycle Comparing similar test efforts Review test pass rate during and after test execution Who to tell? How to tell them? Management, Project Team Lessons learned meeting, post mortem 13

QAAC 14 Defect Leakage into Production 14

QAAC 15 Defect Leakage into Production Capture for each release Capture root cause  Configuration, data, requirements, training, etc.. Capture severity – impact to biz  Critical, high, medium, low Compare release to release 15

QAAC 16 Defect Leakage - Sample What can we learn from this? Who would want to know this? 16

QAAC 17 Requirement Stability Index 17

QAAC 18 Requirements Stability Index RSI indicates the level of change to the original set of customer approved requirements Why is this a good metric to measure? Measuring and controlling RSI within the defined ranges Leads to a stabilized & controlled requirement thus reducing rework effort & defect leakage. Increases test effectiveness and quality of application implemented in production. 18

QAAC 19 RSI cont’d Calculation: = (Total # Original Requirements + Total # of Requirements Changed + Total # of Requirements Added + Total # of Requirements deleted) / Total # Original Requirements Green Green 1.00 to 1.1 (requirements are stable) Yellow Yellow 1.12 to 1.15 (requirements stability is average) Red Red >1.15 (requirements are unstable due to frequent requirement changes) 19

QAAC 20 RSI cont’d When will we calculate RSI?  RSI for a project/application will be calculated every time when a change is requested.  Note: RSI can be published at the end of a release during project closure phase. 20

QAAC 21 RSI cont’d - Sample Total number of original requirements: 28 Requirement changes: 2 Requirements added: 1 Requirements deleted: 3 So…….. RSI = ( )/28 = 1.18 RSI > 1.15, Red (requirements are unstable) 21

QAAC 22 Test Environment Availability 22

QAAC 23 Test environment availability Test environment availability and stability – Total minutes due to issues / total minutes available to track Example: 120 / 480 =.25 25% of the time the environment was not available for testing 23 So… what is the impact when the test environment is not so stable?

QAAC 24 A picture is worth 1000 words… What can be said about the above? 24

QAAC 25 Test environment availability cont’d – Track daily and report out by release – Track for trending 25

QAAC 26 Root Cause of Defects 26

QAAC 27 Root Cause of Defects Defects can be caused for a number of reasons: – Code issues – Ambiguous requirements – Data – Test case – Database – Existing production defect – Configuration – Not an issue (all other) Track root causes for trending to proactively avoid anticipated defects in future 27

QAAC 28 Root Cause of Defect – cont’d 28

QAAC 29 Test Effort Variance 29

QAAC 30 Test effort variance Planned vs. actuals for a test effort – Why track? Learn from Refine your estimating skills – Who cares? QA management, Project Managers, Finance 30 – How to mitigate variance Some reasons for variance: changes in requirements, environmental issues, offshore network issues, late code deployments, unusually high defects, etc… Easier to explain a week in variance – Trending Are you always over or under estimating?

QAAC 31 Error Discovery Rate 31

QAAC 32 Error Discovery Rate EDR = total defects / total test cases executed 32

QAAC 33 Automation Script Results 33

QAAC 34 Automation script results What is the value in automation? The reasons are obvious. What is not so obvious? – The kinds of defects that are found over and over – Script re-work that the automation team put in due to code changes – Applications that always have a low pass rate when the automation bed is run 34

QAAC 35 Metrics can be a path to success… 35

QAAC 36 … because you can… Learn from the metrics Compare similar projects Make things better Continuously improve 36 One step at a time to achieve success.

QAAC 37 In Summary… Reliable tools are needed which house the data Metrics are objective Need to know which metrics make sense for your organization Distribute to folks who can make a difference Pass rates can be deceiving Using metrics displays proactive thought leadership 37

QAAC 38