Course Catalogue

Silverpath provides topic and challenge-centric training workshops given on-site and tailored to the needs of the customer team. Our interactive presentations and hands-on exercises enables participants to maximize the learning benefit through our participatory approach and discussions that are tailored to their day-to-day challenges.

• Early Testing: Outside the Box
• Test Estimation: Size Is Not Enough
• Test Management: Leading Your Team To Success
• Critical Thinking: Testing "How Should It Work?"
• Test Automation: Planning to Automate?
• Testing Basics: From Requirements to Defects

• Agile Projects: Integrating Effective Software Testing
• Project Management: Planning for Quality Software
• Configuration Management: Light-weight CM Benefits Testing
• Requirements: Writing Them Up As You Go

All courses are presented by Trevor Atkins, Principal Consultant of Silverpath Technologies.

*Note: Custom content can be quickly created for topics you do not find listed above. Contact us to discuss your needs.

Course Description: Organizations developing software have been challenged for decades with attaining effective quality assurance and testing practices.

To overcome these challenges you cannot leave testing as an afterthought when planning, or as simply a couple weeks of test execution at the end of a project. Each project cycle will pass through a set of common phases one or more times, regardless of development methodology. This provides the opportunity to integrate value-add verification and validation activities within each stage such that early detection of issues is realized.

The best time to catch defects in the product is to do so before the first modules are even coded. And, starting test activities early means you can catch small quality problems before they become big, more expensive, quality problems later on.

Topics covered:

• What is quality? And what is "good enough"?
• Lowering the Total Cost of Quality with risk-driven testing
• Tailoring your testing approach by project phase
• Enhancing the V-Model for early testing
• Starting testing before the GUI is ready

Course Description: What makes a good test estimate good? There is more than one approach to test effort estimation and some will fare better in different circumstances than others. It is important is that you approach the task in a systematic manner with a defined yet flexible technique.

Learn the do’s and don’ts of successfully estimating for testing from Trevor Atkins, principal consultant of Silverpath Technologies and founder of QA Labs. His direct experience on hundreds of testing projects across a variety of industries and development methodologies has allowed him to determine, through repeated application, what is key to include in a re-usable test estimation framework.

In this course we will also examine how to structure a test estimate for rapid negotiation and buy-in with stakeholders, and how to move your estimation from a simple size calculation to one that substantiates both the test strategy and the overall project plan.

Topics covered:

• What is a “good” estimate for testing?
• Common challenges in test estimation
• Top Ten do’s and don’ts of estimating for testing
• Developing the test estimation framework that is right for you
• Determining budget, scheduling, and resource requirements
• Predictive ability of a test estimation framework (test coverage and residual defects)
• Driving on-going improvements with historical data (estimates and actuals)

Course Description: Testing is constantly beset with limited staff, time, infrastructure, and information while tasked with assessing the quality of varied software systems. To thrive as a leader in such an environment you cannot simply assign tasks or monitor performance. A cohesive vision must be created within the test team, communicated to all stakeholders, and carried forward to successful completion despite obstacles and changing priorities.

When leading a test effort, you must be concerned with knowing and performing the activities of software testing to a high standard, but you must also understand how the test team should participate within the larger activities and priorities of the organization, making visible the value the testing group delivers in that regard.

This practical course is intended for test leads, test managers, and people who expect to take on a leadership role in testing within their organization. The objective of this course is to provide a framework on how to be an effective team leader, maximize the resources available, and gain the visibility you need within your organization to achieve your quality vision.

Topics covered:

• Risk-driven approach to testing and optimizing the Total Cost of Quality
• Risk identification and prioritization
• Deciding your testing approach
• Estimating effort for testing (overview)
• Preparing to manage testing
• Leading your team

Course Description: Critical thinking is effective tool when facing the complex scenarios and interactions commonly embodied in software systems. This course explores how to use a variety of techniques to review and assess a software system under development that goes beyond comparing the system to the documented requirements.

"How should it work?" rather than "How was it built to work?" is the key question kept top-of-mind when testing with this conceptual approach. If involved early in the project lifecycle, such an approach provides the opportunity for the tester and other participating stakeholders to collaborate, explore creative solutions, and shape the system into something better before final delivery.

Topics covered:

• Testing the requirements
• Exploratory testing
• Context-driven testing
• Use case or story driven testing
• Usability testing using heuristics and cognitive walkthroughs
• "What happens if" testing

Course Description: Many teams try to add automation to their projects only to end up frustrated and annoyed. Additionally, after one or two failed attempts, they often give up or no longer have the management support to keep trying. To help increase the chance for success, the approach to automation must be from a realistic perspective with a keen awareness that automating testing effectively is not easy.

This course discusses how to focus the use of automation to get rapid benefits for, how to use the exercise of a creating business case to increase the level of success of large scale implementations, and finally this course will cover some best practices for planning out your automation framework leveraging both automated testing and "tool assisted" testing.

Topics covered:

• What is automated testing?
• Benefits & costs of automation
• What automated testing can and can't do for you
• When and where not to use automation
• Picking the correct tool vs. building your own
• Automation frameworks and test harnesses
• Automators and the project team

Course Description: This course covers the basics of software testing and its core activities, from planning and requirements reviews to test case design and test automation to test execution and results reporting. Attendees will gain understanding of how testing fits into project lifecycle and how the tester role can add significant value to the project and the team.

Topics covered:

• What is testing?
• Setting the right quality attitude
• Balancing quality with project constraints (Total Cost of Quality)
• Testing in the software development lifecycle
• Involving testing early via the V-Model
• Approaching testing by project phase
• Scripted versus unscripted testing
• What are good requirements
• Reviewing for requirements ambiguities
• Qualities of good tests
• Prioritization of tests
• Risk-driven approach to testing
• When are we done testing?
• Logging good defects
• Web and compatibility testing
• Benefits & costs of automation
• What automated testing can and can't do for you
• Picking the correct tool

Course Description: More and more companies are implementing an Agile approach to their projects. While the development and project management processes get a lot of attention in these efforts, testing is often an afterthought. There may not even be a testing role included in the team.

This course draws upon the instructor’s deep and varied experience to provide a framework approach to integrating effective testing and quality practices into the Agile project without sacrificing overall development speed. With a balanced mix of automated and manual, scripted and unscripted test activities, this approach addresses the testing needs of the new development while not leaving behind the need for regression testing of functionality from previous versions.

Topics covered:

• Incorporating testing into Agile planning
• Risk-driven approach to testing
• Capturing your Agile testing strategy
• Removing defects before writing code
• Testing without test cases
• Time for regression testing
• Automation in an Agile project
• Roles versus job descriptions
• Testers, toolsmiths, and developers

Course Description: Software projects are constantly beset with limited staff, time, infrastructure, and information while tasked with delivering the "right" solution on-time and on-budget with high quality. In the face of obstacles and changing priorities, quality is often sacrificed for the sake of releasing on-time or conserving costs. In the big picture, delivering the system to the customer only to have them be unhappy with the functionality or the quality is not a successful project at all.

This practical course is intended for project managers and test managers with the objective to provide a framework on how to integrate quality into the project. The resulting risk-driven approach allows the project to be proactively managed, balance business needs and project constraints with quality goals, and provide a clear decision-making structure and communication network for all stakeholders regarding the changing needs of the project. The end result being the ability of the manager to deliver more truly successful projects to the customer while achieving the organization's quality vision.

Topics covered:

• Risk-driven approach to quality
• Risk identification and prioritization
• Building your business case for quality
• Managing to quality targets
• Balancing Schedule, Effort, and Quality

Course Description: Configuration Management (CM) is a collection of processes and procedures used to increase visibility into a project, thus allowing for implementation of various controls. This course explores the key areas of CM, examining how to practically apply CM through small and straightforward changes that, when combined together, can result in large improvements within an organization and specifically for the testing effort.

Topics Covered:

• What is Configuration Management?
• Costs / benefits
• Key CM functions
  • Identification and naming
  • Control and change management
  • Status accounting
  • Auditing
• Applying light-weight CM and benefits to testing

Course Description: How do you know what a system is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do? Formal requirements are intended to create an easily validated, maintainable and comprehensive set of documents communicating the system's planned functional scope in terms of tasks and behaviours.

What do you do if you do not have these formal requirements? This course provides a proven light-weight, Agile-minded, solution to capture critical information about the system without slowing development. The resulting artifacts can also serve as a direct input into test design and test execution activities, as well as serve the needs of other stakeholders.

Topics covered:

• Why requirements matter
• Forms of "good" requirements
• Reviewing requirements for quality attributes
• Rapid capture and validation of requirements
• Removing ambiguity from the system
• Testing directly from the requirements