Unit testing and QA review have been featured aspects of our technical work for quite some time, but some recent projects demanded a fuller set of testing resources, leading us to bring aboard a Director of Testing and QA Services in the person of Erick Caceres. We are all very pleased to have Erick on the team and his presence has been immediately beneficial in helping us put a finer point on the role of testing in multiple phases of our work.
I have often enjoyed conversations stemming from questions about what peoples’ favorite tools are to do their work. It’s almost always interesting and educational to learn, for instance, what tools a carpenter keeps close at hand and why, or the list and order of items that a backcountry ski guide packs into their backpack. There are often points of concensus, but the unique or individual items are often the ones with the interesting stories behind them.
Erick and I were chatting the other day and I asked him, off the cuff to list his key, must-have, go-to tools for testing work - what goes in the doctor bag? Maybe you’ll be interested in his response…
Some form of test case/test management tool ie. Azure DevOps, JIRA, Xray, etc to manage test case creation, test case execution.
A ticket/task/development tracking system to identify what work needs to be done and is scheduled to be completed.
My little bag of automation tools ie. Selenium, Test Project, Jmeter. VS Code or some IDE to develop automation code.
Hardware Devices like iPads / iPhones, or Android devices, or whatever hardware is necessary for the project.
An IM/Chat/Communication tool to delegate/task testers with work and to get updates on work completed
Test plans, Test Strategy documents
Terminal/ Command prompt (and most likely VPN access of some kind) to ssh into servers and troubleshoot logs, provide production support or to analyze root cause for any defects discovered
Honorable mention - A beer or cider when it’s Friday afternoon.
I would say that formal QA programs and test-integrated development are more mainstays of the general software development field but have been slower to emerge in the niche of geospatial services. Please stay tuned (and feel free to let us know) if you’re interested in hearing more about how we are leveraging QA services and automation testing within the geo space!