Selection of a Testing Certification Standard Susan N. Burgess “There’s got to be a better way. Let’s find it together.” 2007 November

Who Am I?  Vice President, Promotions, Canadian Software Testing Board (CSTB) – Canadian national board of ISTQB  Member of Sheridan College Program Advisory Committee for IT  6 years as Senior Manager, Enterprise Test Consulting, Royal Bank of Canada  So – Why am I here?

Objective  Explain why RBC chose ISTQB certification as their standard for QA education  Show you some survey results  Encourage you to consider ISTQB curriculum for QA education in your company  What prompted RBC to make this decision?

A Serious Production Problem  Every company has production problems!  No process is fool proof!  If something can go wrong, eventually it will!

Problems happen…!!  RBC is no exception Anyone remember the summer of 2004??? “processing interruption”, “computer glitch” Very public problem!!  What was the cause?

The High Level Cause?  Human error and the domino effect

Was That All?  Studies were done

There Were Deeper Findings  Not a systemic problem  But one finding was that…..  Quality Assurance was not being given enough priority

Needed to Emphasize QA  QA Career path needed revisiting Job descriptions QA organizations  QA Education needed to be improved Education program tailored to match the new career path Education program was made current  Decision made: QA staff were to become professionally Certified!!!

Many Testing /QA Certifying Bodies  International Software Testing Qualification Board  Quality Assurance Institute  International Institute for Software Testing  Software Quality Engineering  …….

Why ISTQB?  Reputation of instructors  Did not require significant financial investment at a junior level (one course – Foundations)  ISTQB was still building syllabi in more advanced and expert education levels Opportunity to influence  Seemed to match RBC’s culture well

First Steps  First Foundations Course Rave reviews !!!! Word spread – demand was high  Commitment from Executives  Set % target for certification of QA staff

Underway  Pass/fail rate was acceptable – guesses?  But… Foundations course was not enough

Additional Courses  Subject Matter Expert Sessions RBC experts  Introduction to testing  Performance testing  Test environments  Test tools  Advanced ISTQB courses Technical Tester Test Manager Functional Tester

Training Plan ISTQB courses at every level from Jnr QA Analyst to Snr QA Manager

Survey Results  6 months after Foundations course: 80% would recommend course to others 62% believe QA performance has improved since completing course (e.g. dynamic and static testing techniques) 71% believe their confidence increased

Today  Feedback  Targets for 2008  Pleased with ISTQB?

Thank you