BCS Commonsense

It's just common sense
The last few years have seen an exponential increase in the number of testing tools designed to help testers and there is no doubt that they can make a significant impact.
However, even without tools, it is possible to improve testing by making simple, cheap changes based on good practice and common sense. The following article illustrates how this happened during testing on a particular project phase in which I was involved.

A while ago, I was invited to join the Hybrid System project to manage the testing of the next release. The Hybrid System was a client server, transaction processing system based on a Tandem mainframe and special purpose-built equipment (APTs) installed at post office counters.

The APTs were used to collect and verify information about customer transactions, such as bills paid. These transactions were uploaded by the mainframe which sorted all the transactions and sent information about them to each client. The information was also sent to the central finance systems, for further processing.

The Hybrid System was due to be phased out over the next couple of years and replaced by the ICL Pathway system. The new system would replace the office equipment and the mainframe system.

The previous Hybrid release had started the process by allowing transactions collected by Pathway equipment to be processed by the Tandem. The new release would put in place all the code to allow the Hybrid System to work with Pathway on a gradual transition of all functions until the Hybrid System could be switched off. There were four separate phases to full implementation, all to be tested in the one release.