Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) – Really its all about quality. Here are some key things to keep in mind about SOPs. Read further >

There are many intelligent conceptual tools and solutions that help us do our work more effectively. I was recently in a project management class and they taught us SWOT analysis. While I had heard of the concept before, I had never used it myself. Trying it out, I learned what a powerful tool it can be in helping you carve out your niche. Read further >

Solvency II, which will be effective as of January 2013, is a set of new and stronger European Union-wide requirements for insurers. These new requirements on capital adequacy and risk management are meant to help protect policy holders and will reduce consumer loss or market disruption in insurance. The regulation has three portions or pillars that include quantitative requirements (regulatory reporting), disclosure, and transparency in communicating to shareholders and enterprise risk management (ERM). Read further >

A survey of more than 600 lenders in the mortgage market which was undertaken in April 2010 by Wolters Kluwer Financial Services found 76 percent were still relying on an inefficient paper-based method to process mortgages. The top reasons lenders had not implemented an electronic solution were security of borrower data, high implementation costs, and the potential impact to lending workflow. The OneFile mortgage workflow solution offered by Wolters Kluwer Financial Services helps lenders overcome all of these obstacles. Read further >

“Nothing is permanent except change.” – unknown

This is an old quote that has always intrigued me and in today’s world it is the new reality. Competition, economic conditions, and doing more with less are a few reasons why change is more visible and wide spread than it was a couple of years ago. Customers want everything fast but also want good quality. If the customer requirements are not met, they go to competitors. Organizations have to push their employees to do more, faster and deliver with quality. Read further >

Raymond Blijd recently wrote about customers in his post Did You Just Call Me a ‘Customer’? This got me thinking about customers and the value we provide to them. Customer Value Add (CVA) is defined as any activity in a process that is essential to deliver a service to the customer and adds value to the customer. Read further >

What is 5S?

I was at a lean six sigma training recently and in the training we spent an hour or so learning about 5S. 5S is a process and method for creating and maintaining an organized, clean, safe, and high performance workspace. This methodology uses five Japanese words which are translate to letters that start with “s” in English. The 5s are Sort (Seiri), Set In Order/Simplify (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu), Sustain/Self discipline (Shitsuke). In recent years a couple of new terms have been added – Safety, Security, and Satisfaction (of the customer). Read further >

What is agile development?
Agile development is a term used for iterative and/or incremental software development methodologies. Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Lean Development are a few methodologies associated with agile development. Even though each of these methodologies are different, they all share a common core definition – the Agile Manifesto. With this method, software development occurs in iterations. Continuous feedback is gathered from users and this is then used to fine-tune the development process. Read further >

In my previous post I talked about Cloud Testing: Trends and Challenges. In one of the comments John Barker asked me about testing risks and risk mitigation. In this post I will talk about cloud testing risks at a high level. Read further >

Software Testing: “The process of analyzing a software item to detect the differences between existing and required conditions (that is, bugs), and to evaluate the features of the software item.” (Ref. IEEE Std 829)

What does that mean?
It means testers execute an application with the intent of finding defects or bugs. We execute the application in an environment that is set as close as possible to how the customers or end users will be using the system. This was easier when the application was installed in a local and controlled environment. Software testers could control the variables within these systems to replicate customer environments and test the application. Now, with the cloud comes challenges that are somewhat different from traditional software testing.

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