"A system that people work with must also be workable for people."
In this blog series we talk to test managers and test coordinators from various industries. At Testersuite we like to hear the various views on testing and what keeps a test manager or test coordinator busy. In this edition of Let's Talk About Test meet Robert van Hooff, test manager of PTWEE at NIBC.
My name is Robert and I am 50. Together with my wife and three children, I live in Bleiswijk, near the small river Rotte, where we often take the dog for a walk. My daughters are 13 and 18. My son is 20 and will probably study IT.
Definitely!
No, no, no. When I was a child, I wanted to be a pilot. Then, during adolescence, the idea of becoming a chef came up. My interest in cooking started to grow. It became a hobby of mine.
After the vwo, I went to study at the University of Applied Sciences. I could choose between the HES Rotterdam and the HES Amsterdam. As a resident of The Hague, you naturally choose quality and therefore Rotterdam. Because of my great love for languages (English, German and French) I chose International Management. In addition to the economic and financial subjects, this programme also included languages. I completed my internship in Ludwigshafen.
From PTWEE I recently did an assignment for which I ended up in Frankfurt. There, I tested a new digital workplace with German colleagues. At the Dutch branch the language is English. So there too, I get my money's worth in terms of languages.
"Before this I used Wordperfect 5.1 and Lotus 123."
After my studies, I had to enlist. We were the last batch (93-3) of conscripts. The period of service lasted 10 months because conscription was abolished on 1 January. The cold war had ended and the Directorate of Materiel had a lot of surplus ammunition. This had to be dismantled. It was my job to conduct an international (i.e. languages again) procurement study. The objective was to select a party that could professionally dispose of the ammunition at a lower cost. I made use of the applications available at the time.
During my period at COA in Rijswijk, I started as a staff member for information provision. My task was to collect all the management information needed by the central management. For this, I used Wordperfect 5.1, Lotus 123 and Harvard Graphics, which was the standard at the time. I optimised that and soon became known as the information supply brain. People saw that I liked it and had an aptitude for it.
Support for an existing customised system in which all the information about the reception centres and the residents was stored was soon requested. I was allowed to coordinate this as Functional Management Coordinator. Once a month, I organised a meeting with superusers. Functional wishes were expressed, we determined the priorities and looked at the impact on IT. We then carried out the first tests with the release.
The system must do what it promises."
Yes, indeed. I strongly believe that a system that people work with must also be workable for people. The system must do what it promises. Efficient, user-friendly and simple. People should be happy with the tool they are working with. IT is an enabler for the business. New technological developments are interesting but too often there is a big gap between the functionalities on offer and what people really need. End users often have difficulty articulating what functionality they need. The IT used must above all be usable and support end users for optimum results. Closing that gap is what I constantly strive for in my career.
Be ready on time! You cannot be involved early enough as a test manager (from a quality assurance point of view) in projects. Make objectives as smart as possible. Determine your requirements as early as possible in the process. Ask yourself the question: can I test this with administrators and users? I want to be able to see it for myself how it will be used later on. If I cannot, I will ask questions and challenge people. The bank I currently work for has made the quality of its IT a priority. Fortunately, they see the need to involve test managers early on in important IT developments.
We have recently started a new Salesforce project for which the contract has just been signed. The first question is then what exactly has been contracted? What are we going to do with that party and in what order? How do you keep things intact? You are never in a greenfield situation because the shop has to stay open. You cannot release something in splendid isolation without taking into account the landscape in which it has to land. You have to take into account the processes to be supported, migrations, integrations, security, compliance, etc. You name it. More and more demands are being placed on this.
The most important is that we have implemented a new digital workplace concept with hardly any incidents during the roll-out. Management of the various branches has expressed their compliments for the smooth roll-out. The management of the IT supplier has indicated that it has never done a roll-out to a customer with so few incidents. That was a nice compliment to get. That's what you do it for.
Also important to mention is the use of quality gates. The user acceptance test is the ultimate test. I sometimes had to advise postponing live applications because the quality criteria had not been met. Those advices were accepted by the management. Testersuite has helped me a great deal to be able to provide factual support based on defects, defects and acceptance criteria.
"I'm glad we did this with Testersuite because I could prove everything."
The project involved around 140 client applications and a similar number of business applications, various peripherals, new networks, server environments, you name it. Testersuite helped to make a product/risk analysis. We tested with end-users of which some had not tested before in a structured way. Getting these people to work in Testersuite went very smoothly. We could easily justify what we had tested and what the results were.
A nice benefit of Testersuite is that besides being simple and complete, it also has a good audit trail. I just did a project where we were audited. I am glad we did this with Testersuite because I could prove everything.
I think the next step is test automation. You have to be ready for that as an organisation. This makes the work for testers and the test organisation easier with repetitive test cases. The work of the test manager will shift more to analysing. Why do I keep getting the same defects in the same corner and how are we going to solve this structurally?
That is true. I was also triggered by that statement earlier. Analysis also means that you have to initially test manually to see if your analysis is correct and how can you transform that into a regression test set. Besides, you can't test everything automatically.
The reporting option in Testersuite has been greatly improved. It would be nice if we could also record a release advice in Testersuite. Then your entire test reporting, decision-making on this for quality gates and the audit trail on this would be fixed in Testersuite.
Be yourself and always question things in a way that is not threatening. Prevent yourself from being sidelined. Prepare things well with people so that what you advise is not a surprise.
When I look back on my career, I see a clear red thread, always making good quality solutions for the customer, no matter what position.
Let's talk about test!
Do you have interesting experiences in the testing profession that you would like to share? Let us know about it! Let's talk
