Imago^QA / Microgen

As a Test Consultant for Imago I was required to work for a number of different organisations. This involved the ability to be able to quickly come up to speed with new and diverse businesses and company cultures. Despite these business diversities there is a general consistency in the best practices and software development processes encountered and deployed in these organisations. I worked on the following assignments during my time with Imago:

I worked as the Test Manager on the ISP Connect Broadband Project that enables UK Consumer Internet Service Providers (such as AOL and Wanadoo) to deliver Broadband Internet Access to their end-users. I was responsible for the high-level planning of the test and acceptance stages of the project and setting up the initial strategy, plans and test schedule.

As a Test Consultant for Airbus I created and implemented a programme level generic test strategy that I successfully deployed to all Engineering divisions with Airbus in the UK, Germany, France and Spain. I also introduced a number of software development process improvements and tool implementations to provide common requirements, change and defect management as well as test automation. I was additionally responsible for the overall system and acceptance testing of all software developed by the Engineering division in the UK. These applications include Computer Aided Design tools and Configuration Management tools running on SUN and HP UNIX workstations and many additional COTS and bespoke applications used within the organisation running on Windows NT and 2000 platforms. My role at Airbus included the following specific responsibilities:

• Developed a generic test strategy, test standards, checklists and templates and implemented them across all Airbus National companies in the UK, France, Germany and Spain. I subsequently integrated the strategy with the companies own software development methodology.
• Management and design of value creation projects in all major Airbus National Companies to introduce the use of new processes and tools throughout the software development lifecycle to support the Airbus Software Development Methodology and Generic Test Strategy. These included a code and change management process using Rational’s Unified Change Management (ClearCase and ClearQuest) rolled out to approximately 100 software developers and providing incident reporting and monitoring to over 3,000 end users via a web front end.
• Production of Test Plans for individual software development projects and co-ordinating the preparation of test data, test scripts and environments along with the control and monitoring of the testing activities.
• Providing test approval for all software deployed by the Engineering division.
• Providing consultancy and advice to testers on small projects to ensure that quality standards are met. This included reviews of test materials, running training courses on the deployed test tools as well as providing help and support in understanding the processes.

I was responsible for undertaking the initial study at lastminute.com to evaluate the existing testing and release management procedures, and produce a proposal recommending process improvements. The proposal aimed to implement processes and procedures by utilising more effectively the existing resources and tools to give greater confidence in the coverage and depth of testing on each new release or patch.

I worked as a Test Manager for an e-commerce solutions provider developing a B2B web site. I was responsible for the complete system testing of the entire project and the management of the test team. This included reviewing and re-organising the functional system tests, producing a test plan and strategy for the non functional testing, co-ordinating the running of the tests, incident reporting and planning the testing activities to meet with the target launch date..

I worked as a Test Analyst for a major investment bank producing user acceptance test scripts and assisting with the planning of the user acceptance testing for a large on-line trading and banking system.