The need for best practices in modern software testing is imperative for meeting the business objectives of today's demanding IT world. Improving application quality, reducing deployment time and increasing productivity are some of the main goals. While our services generally concentrate on quality assurance, testing and test automation, we recognize that the state of testing does not stand alone. Success of all quality assurance related efforts depend on the overall development activities.

In order to accommodate various cultures and request for methods of implementation, our team at QAVision has followed formal disciplines as well as hybrid approaches of several industry standards. During the test automation engagement with Citibank, our team has utilized a document named as "QC Strategy" built from IEEE standards. We have also conducted test case data analysis using SPC - Statistical Process Control (Taguchi Design) for test automation reviews with ADP.

Throughout our engagements, we have adopted various standards, assisted our clients towards compliance with ISO 9000 or SEI's CMM. However, we have concluded that a customized approach as a result of our synthesis is the ultimate representation of the best quality assurance practices.

Please find below our synthesis of best testing practices as recognized by industry leaders and standardization bodies. This methodology is proven effective in various large-scale projects, including mission critical applications for Citibank, ADP, GE and SIAC (NYSE and AMEX):

1. Core Practices: Practices which are widely implemented and their value contribution towards generating high quality software accepted by software testing authorities.

		Reviews and Inspections (adopted from IEEE standards)
		Functional Requirements Testing (outlined in IEEE and ASQ guidelines)
		Use Cases driven Test Requirements (from OOA and OOD practices)
		Traceability Matrix creation (Correlating functional to test requirements)
		Automated Functional Test Execution
		Daily Builds and Smoke Testing

2. Test Foundation Practices: These practices are used to adapt and comply with quality models like SEI’s CMM and CMMI, ISO 9000, SPC and Six Sigma.

		User Scenarios and Expert Knowledge to exercise functionality
		Test case data selection using Taguchi Method (using Orthogonal Arrays)
		Valid and invalid boundary values, error handling and data validation testing

3. Continuous Quality Increments: These are practices used by maturing organizations. They provide optimization for organizations that maintain large and complex applications.

		Code Coverage analysis
		Teaming functional testers with unit testers (testers and developers)
		Defect Trend analysis
		Test metrics’ analysis and productivity measurement

One of our advantages as a global services company is that QAVision continuously incorporates feedback from its customers to its methodology. The above framework is optimized to provide recommendations towards improving quality of deployed systems with time-to-market in mind. Furthermore, we have created a solid formula to measure and improve productivity for software testing.

The implementation of the above methodology and services are provided by our practice team professionals lead by our practice manager who has over ten years experience with various quality assurance methodology certifications including the CQA – Certified Quality Auditor. Our team has extensive experience working with Financial (Banking and Trading) system and possesses great deal of business knowledge. QAVision's familiarity of Capital Markets and the Banking Industry with their highly mission critical systems will surely give us the added edge to relate to high end technology and systems.

QAVision delivers certain key artifacts as a standard outcome upon completion of the initial analysis phase of an engagement which separates us from the simple Time and Material based competition. These artifacts are:

		An executive summary with reports of current state
		Detailed report on recommendations for improvement and related ROI
		Scope of work for improvements
		Estimation of analysis for implementing these recommendations
		MS PowerPoint presentations for best practices
		A Microsoft project plan with guidelines from PMBOK
		Detailed cost breakdown and related expenses.