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Skilled Information Technology professionals and staff with the
necessary IT staff with the necessary skills to identify and correct
programs which are not Year 2000 compliant will be at a premium
for the remainder of this century (and probably for a year or two
into the next).
Using these people to create and execute test suites is not making
the best use of their skills. Especially if you don't have to.
A very strong alternative is to look to your business application
users as a primary source of members for your testing teams. Our
past experience has shown that these people, with a little training
on testing fundamentals, become very effective and productive
testers.
Please consider the following:
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Users understand functional needs
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Many of the applications to be made Year 2000 compliant
will be quite old, and in many cases functional specifications
will be out of date, or simply not available.
The only people who fully understand the functions that
these application systems must perform are the end users.
It sensible and probably mandatory to have strong user
involvement in functional testing to ensure that the date
changes have been successful, and that no undesirable side
effects have been introduced.
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Using available resources effectively
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Let's assume for the moment that a series of test teams could
be set up, with each team composed primarily of end users,
but with one or two technical staff assigned to provide
overall guidance and assistance when needed.
Such a team structure immediately alleviates two major
problems associated with testing Year 2000 changes:
- Scarcity of technical personnel
- Lack of application knowledge necessary to undertake thorough testing.
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User based testing requirements
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What would be needed to allow such a predominantly user
based testing team to operate effectively?
Our experience has shown the answer to this question is
fourfold:
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Selection of user testers who are knowledgeable in the use
of the applications
- Training in the fundamentals of testing
- A test automation tool which is genuinely easy to use and
learn
- An internal IT resource who can provide guidance for the
nuances of the particular testing environment.
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User based testing with TALC2000
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Teaching a group of users to design and implement effective
tests has proved to be straightforward. While many very
technically skilled professionals are using TALC2000 for
testing the majority of testers using TALC2000 are business
users.
TALLECOM has been running short (2 day) courses for
users to do this for several years.
Our experience has shown that because of their application
knowledge, a group of users who have received good basic
training in functional testing techniques can usually design a
more complete set of functional tests than personnel who are
IT trained but lack the application knowledge.
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 Tester's Corner
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