Software Release Accelerator Program Methodology
The qaSignature Software Release Accelerator Solution is a program comprised of four components, which only in combination can deliver the desired results of faster and higher quality software development that allows companies to multiply their productivity, revenues and profits, without a corresponding increase in costs. Much like a four legged stool which are all required for stability, these four components are:
1. The qaOptimizer? technology platform (from qaSignature)
2. The qaSignature professional services team (from qaSignature)
3. Engineering development process Integration (with VP Eng participation)
4. Program results reporting to key management team members (CEO and Dir QA)
Software Release Accelerator Program Methodology
This specially developed, business rules-based methodology improves and adapts the QA testing environment to provide optimized efficiency. The testing literally becomes smarter and faster over time. The more it is used, the greater the efficiencies and return on investment it delivers.
How the qaOptimization? solution fits into the greater Agile development methodology can be explained using an analogy to rugby, the sport from which Scrum, an Agile development partner of ours, takes its name. Scrum was born out of Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka’s 1986 Harvard Business Review Article wherein they compared their new holistic approach to development, in which the phases strongly overlap and the whole process is performed by one cross-functional team across the different phases, to rugby, where the whole team "tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth.”
Continuing the analogy to rugby; when the scrum in rugby hits the opposing team’s wall and stops, the ball is passed to the back-line. The way that
qaOptimization? fits into Agile development
methodologies is similar to the way that the back-linefunctions relative to scrums in rugby. The back-line’s job is to get the ball from the scrum and then pass and run the ball quickly to bring the ball to a better position until it is stopped. When the back-line stops, the ball is transferred back to the scrum, and new scrum iteration starts. Ideally the objective overall effort, the scrums and back-line movement, is to scores a “try” (a shippable build/ release). Figure 1 on the right shows the process described above. The development teams go back to qaOptimization? then gets the results back and continues new development. The process continues until the product ships.