The Eclectic Approach to Integration and Testing: Balancing Art and Engineering

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When they examined the methods I use that work well when the organization and implementation of a stress check, I found that was based on communication skills I learned as a dancer and dance teacher than the formal approach that I learned as an engineer. When I am planning and reporting tools and engineering methods.Dance is not communicated through written documents but by an older form of communication, dance is communicated by oral tradition. This contrasts sharply with the engineers and musicians, who communicate through written documents, but is closely correlated with the current requirements of application development. I mention the musicians, because there's a giant number of musicians in the application development.An oral tradition has the advantage that no time lost in the instruction register in another medium, and the disadvantage that there is no permanent record of what happened and everyone should remain near to be informed. Giant projects can not be controlled using verbal communication alone, nor can the project with team members who are spread in different locations. The recording instructions and design details in writing requires time, but allows ideas to be communicated to lots of people in remote locations.
Dancers absorb and memorize new material through a combination of entry for oral, aural and visual. Virtually all the movements that the dancer does is set by the choreographer. Dancers never perform ad lib. Each movement must be accomplished in a specific rhythm in any exact location and spatial orientation on the stage. This is doubly true for members of the corps de ballet, which should operate as a single unit, with each dancer individually, precisely in line with everybody else. The dancers must execute complex coordinated movements precisely again and again in the jurisdiction, and in the right place on stage until the inclination of the head and the angle and alignment of the fingers. It is within this framework demanding and requires a dancer who applies his art to make the special delivery of dance exceptional and memorable. A group of testers of these features is undoubtedly in a position to do an excellent job of testing a process.The dancers are competent professionals when they are hired. When a new production is scheduled, everyone is given a portion, usually one that is well suited to her or his skills. The main difference between ballet and the application business is that in ballet, everybody expects to be taught the party will be held in each production run. In business, the expectation is that somehow everyone will know you. My mate Bill says, "Everyone wants to learn, but nobody wants to be taught." In business it seems true. But does not solve the problem of transferring knowledge to new players in a new production and have them work together.I have had success in addressing these difficulties in the construction equipment businesses. In a team environment, the work of each member is visible, if someone is not up to par, the situation can be addressed and solutions can be proposed. The biggest problems arise when individuals are isolated and their work has low visibility. Today, these precepts are thought about an integral part of the management of a collaborative development hard work.The dance teacher or master is responsible for the company to check, detect and correct problems, and manipulation of the entire company to give their best performance. If any part of production is not working, is the dance teacher or teacher who takes the matter to the choreographer. To make this work, the dance teacher or teacher must attend each session matchless choreography and rehearsal. If there's any notes written for a production, is often the dance teacher or teacher who creates and maintains. They or they must be able to count on each phrase of music for the production of memory, preferably while singing the main themes. They or they ought to know, at least in general, part of each dancer and all entries and exits. In a pinch they or they must be able to dance the part of the dancers who are not present for the rest of society is not affected by absence. This may mean filling out a member of the choir or a soloist.The dance teacher or master should be able to detect and correct mistakes and be prepared to arbitrate or resolve the stalemate in disagreements between the dancers, like "We're supposed to be in the air at six." "No, we are supposed to be on the ground in six." They or they also must be able to argue convincingly to nondancers as lighting engineers and musicians. For example, the dance teacher may must persuade drivers fouetté music should be played at a slower tempo as the first dancer does not fall or spin off the stage like a top out of control. Incidentally, this is a validation by the ballet mistress, but relies on his trial. Verification would need the argument to be tested to verify what happened to the dancer turning on the pace open to doubt.The ballet teacher is primarily a technician, not an administrator, however, they or they ought to be able to manage the egos and temperaments differ in the company to keep everyone happy, that is, ready, willing and able to give a splendid performance.The company takes the correction of the ballet mistress and teacher, for one reasons. The first is that the dancers only experience with a long wheelbase are selected to fulfill this demanding role, and their corrections are virtually guaranteed to improve the quality of performance. The second is that the decision of the teacher or teacher of ballet can only be revoked by the choreographer.They are human beings. Our efforts include these features because they are effective in the management of human endeavors, those that need cooperation, teamwork. Each discipline has a key person who performs a similar function to the dance teacher. In the symphony's conductor, in the song is the choir director, in acting is the director, and in sport is the coach.So while the experts, as soloists, are focused on giving the best performance possible in their share of production, the ballet mistress or master integrator is responsible for testing and manipulation of production as a whole. All these players, working together, are necessary to ensure a truly excellent performance.In safety-critical application, the testers are generally people with more experience in a project, and their decisions are seldom questioned or overturned. One can only imagine what happens to the whole method, if this integrative role in the testing method does not exist, is filled by someone who is misinformed, or is occupied by someone who has no expertise.Lots of studies show that the testers should be involved in application design and development phases, but the industry continues to treat application testing at the last moment, and testers and unskilled temporary posts be filled by people without special training.Engineers communicate in writing. Except for the clarification, the field engineer receives all of her or his knowledge of the project and instructions on the designs. This means that designs must be well thought out, precise, and up to date. When a situation arises that is not covered by the designs, the prescribed field engineer a solution, usually after consulting with a colleague and receive a second opinion to back up her or his own. Since I have already discussed the problems associated with trying to generate and maintain documentation on paper at the fast pace of application development industry should be clear that the engineering methods applied to application development are frequently broken in this point. Workers do what the field engineer, says, because the engineer is the authority in charge. The decision of the general field engineer can only be overturned by a direct challenge and an inquiry by other engineers at the request of the owner or general contractor. Even if the decision of a field engineer is shown to be incorrect, it may not be easy to get around.In my role as integrator, who spare no hard work to make sure you invite me to the design meetings and brainstorming sessions if it is part of the plan or not. If that fails, I hope I make friends among designers and programmers to keep me informed. If all these things fail, if I have been refused access to developers, can not succeed. When I check the contract, that have clauses that permit my company to withdraw from the project in this situation. Even if I withdraw, I feel compelled to tell my management, in writing, that the situation is untenable and can not do my job satisfactorily.Since paper documents in the application development hard work are never able to keep up with current trends, the integrator that follows the progress of the project at first hand may be more effective in managing stress check that application engineer based on written documentation. The advantage that the integrator through word of mouth should decrease as they focus on the implementation of strategies for self-documenting in the electronic media to replace paper documents, transcribed, but these skills are not always beneficial.Traditionally, engineers are far removed from the concerns regarding the factors. A lack of interest or understanding of the needs and priorities of people is a serious handicap for somebody trying to manage people today. Loyalty to the company that used to permit managers and engineers to rule by decree has been seriously eroded. Recent studies have shown that employees are more likely to feel loyal to their current project to your company.In engineering, the final draft is seldom better than the designs. In art, the project has small loyalty to a plan, but continually evolving and improving. Never completed, only released.Over-and underplanning is one of the hottest topics being debated in application magazines in 2002. The Model Capability Maturity disciples need extensive planning in the best tradition of engineering, meanwhile, agile developers prefer to produce and check little portions in immediate response to customer demand or changes of thought. In the theater is the difference between a Shakespeare and a night of improvisation. Like it or not, both have their place.You must select the method or approach right tool for the job at hand.

Note: One points for application engineers to think about:

Engineering provides methods for presenting arguments and win over fact and measurement are much higher than those used in the arts. The art of using criticism to make people aware of the problems. Criticism is generally subjective and personal, as in "You made a mistake." Criticism is not easy to accept, for those not raised in a field where criticism is commonplace. The use of criticism leads to confrontational situations. Lovely engineering uses aim measurement of fact and make corrections. Facts and measurement are impersonal and more easily accepted, as in "not a mistake they ought to correct. "You must be flexible and plan for alter.Sometimes, neither the integrator of the ballet lover, nor the engineering approach is acceptable. The artists are in the midst of the creative method with small or no supervision are not necessarily happy to have introduced an alternative authority in your project, if they have was successful in discrediting and dismantling the check group at home.It's been said, "As you discover," to which you might say, "no blame unnecessarily." Testers using engineering arguments, in fact, and measurement are in a better position to be effective in evaluating of the real importance of the issues and gain points and avoid confrontational meetings.An interesting consequence of this situation is the rising popularity of external review. An external review takes place when someone outside the project, or outside the company, the process tests and write a bug document called for examination. The review is presented to management. Those who write the external examination are disposable bad. Questions listed in the review are generally taken seriously by the administration because the source is external and not evaluated, and the arguments are generally fair. Lots of of these issues may well have been recorded by the group in the check house and denied the development.Testers do not must be experts in a well-tested process. Testers must be trained and using a systematic, logical reasoning, and measures to make their case. They must also be well informed about the project and have lovely communication links to the experts. People skills are an advantage.Like it or not, it also includes screening tests. Lovely testers are digging and exploring the process. They require to know how it works. Those who do not dig in to that is not going to do the job, and those who think they know how it works is not lovely either, because they are close and biased.

The Top-Down Approach versus the Bottom-Up Approach:
The focus of the check that was entrenched in the industry in 1987 when it began testing was the bottom-up approach. Fundamentally, the bottom-up approach with the check product as follows: Each module or component is first tested alone, this is called unit testing. Then, the modules are combined at a time and check. The simulators are used in lieu of components that are necessary but missing. More modules are added when the existing ones are stable until the whole technique has been mounted. This approach is also very cautious of engineering, is rigorous and thorough, but also very slow. It's one sizable disadvantage: Testers are testing the simulators, and not the real technique. I have not seen a real technique still behaved exactly like the simulator.The bottom-up approach is a rigorous testing approach that comes from engineering. When applied to commercial development environment today, bottom-up testing is how to teach each group the exercise of its parts, then convening power, a few at a time to rehearse. It is a very long and laborious process of gathering all the cast, since the dynamics of the group changes every time the cast members that add new, generating a new set of issues at each step, none of which is relevant to the done product. These tests are only of value if it is important to know in advance what the technique performance is likely that if some members are not working. Such evidence could lead to a stress check that contains a massive amount of unproductive redundancy. However, sometimes the only way to accomplish the objective.From top to bottom as the check is to teach every member of the cast on his part separately, then get the technique as much as possible and for a trial as soon as possible. In the top-down approach to testing, each module is the unit of the first check, all modules are assembled, [1] and the whole group is tested as a technique from the highest point possible, usually the interface user, making possible simulations.In the top-down approach, testers beginning the integration phase. This requires that unit code has been tested before being delivered to testers. If unit testing is not done successfully or whether the lack of integrity of units up and down the check won't succeed. If the new technique is unstable to check, the best that the tester can do is split up and try again. Check the entire technique won't succeed if most of the testing time is spent diagnosing buggy units.