Comments on: The Art of Testing http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/ This is the Blog of Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System. This is the place where I share what I have learned through my mistakes and other crazy things in the life of a healthcare CIO. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:51:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-155 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 02:15:43 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-155 User Observation testing is how well end users understand an application’s interface.

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-154 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 02:15:27 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-154 Testing is not so much an art form as it is a mind set. If it is viewed as important, it will be done well even if the tester is not an expert. Art is wonderful but by definition not reproducible.

]]> By: Will http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-146 Wed, 22 Nov 2006 07:46:30 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-146 Steven, tell us more about user observation testing.

]]> By: steven edward streight http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-145 Wed, 22 Nov 2006 07:46:07 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-145 You are including user observation tests, right?

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-142 Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:26:08 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-142 A test system should NEVER be used as the platform for disaster recovery or backup. The test system is just what it implies….a “Test System”. Though it is usually a mirror image of the production system it also has the updated version which is being tested as well as test patients/accounts, and is were fixes and updates are loaded and tested before being moved to production. A backup/disaster recovery environment should be a mirror image of the production system, including current/production (tested) versions, fixes and production data.

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-141 Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:02:48 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-141 How common is it to use these Test systems for data backup or recovery?

]]> By: Ziggy http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-137 Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:09:41 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-137 Unfortunatley, many times the business decision is to cut out the neccesary hardware and software resources for these TEST systems. The project team ends up utilizing the systems that are about to go into production for testing, but this luxury is lost once the system is live.

On the flip side, many of these turn-key TEST systems would not be utilized on a regular basis, thus very hard to justify their existance. If these applications can utilize standard hardware components it’s much easier to set-up VMWARE occurences of these systems. However, many vendors require a proprietary environment and charge a premium for a true TEST system. “Dictaphone” comes to mind…..

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-133 Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:35:01 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/the-art-of-testing/#comment-133 Will,
I truly agree with your comments and opinion regarding testing. I also believe it is an art form but has faded over the past few years due to project deadlines and milestones. If a project is in jeopardy of not meeting its go live date, testing and documentation always seem to suffer. I am not sure how many Analysts out there (including vendors), understand the difference and necessity of the various testing stages, therefore, I believe, implementation quality has suffered.
I too worked for organizations in the 80′s where testing was regulated and managed by senior business leaders, and the end result was not turned over to the production user community until test results (which included issues logging and tracking) were documented, reviewed and signed off by business leaders, as well as IT. This included documentation of unit, interface, integration, stress, conversion, and backout procedure testing.
The idea of a Testing Guru is very appropriate to assist each project teat in the development of effective test plans. Caution must be made, however, that the Testing Guru Assists and does not get “saddled” with the development of test plans, as well as documenting and tracking of the issues log. All project teams should include appropriate resources to fulfill all requirements of the testing phase of the project, and the Testing Guru be utilized as a testing consultant, not the testing secretary.

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