Workaround for a broken Home button on iPhone or any iOS devices

Assistive Touch:
I use to test a lot on my iPhone.
Recently, I found that couple of my friends have unusable devices like iPods, iPads and iPhones.
There is a workaround for this. Although it will work only upwards of 5.0.

Firstly if your device is lower than 5.0, upgrade your device to 5.0/5.0.1 after taking a backup of the device.

Connect your device to iTunes and when it prompts for upgrade, Press ok.
It might take a couple of hours.

It can be quick, if you have the relevant ipsw file.
If you have one, From iTunes, just press shift + restore(for windows) or options + restore (for mac) and browse the ipsw file and upgrade your device.


Once it is done, from the home screen, go to Settings->General->Accessibility->Assistive Touch->ON
Viola!, there is a soft home button displayed on the home screen, which can be moved around and positioned as you wish!

Jira - Greenhopper Plugin Evaluation

I wanted to try Greenhopper for a very long time. I already have firsthand experience with Jira.

I like the tool a lot and hence I decided to install the standalone version of Jira on my machine and Install Greenhopper on top of it.

So, I went to the Jira website.

I installed a Standalone version of Jira (Trial version, free for 30 days). I wanted to use the sandbox,  but since it asked for the credit card details, I preferred the standalone version! You may need to create an account with Atlassian to get the License keys, one for Jira and another for Greenhopper.

Created the projects

Created issues of various types for different projects

Configured the translations

Created different components

Created different releases.

Created a couple of tickets

The following are the findings:

After upgrading to greenhopper, it will ask for indexing of database, which will migrate all the tickets and during this time, Jira won’t be accessible.

Planning Board:

 Pros: Will be good to use when the project is going to start.

This is mostly for, on the fly issue creation and assigning it to a version.

Affects version, if already created, we cannot create the same version with greenhopper.

Cons: As when the cards grow, it will be a lot tough to use.

Filters cannot be used here!!!

The cards get listed only based on the version/component etc ONLY if the fix version is populated [scheduled]

Rapid Board (Kanban)

Pros: Thank God!, with the Rapid board, filters can be created and used.

This is more flexible and the TO DO are listed in a more organised way(Kanban).

We can set quick filters as buttons [eg: My Issues, Component etc).

There are good charts for trends, burndown charts and timelines...

Cons:It will look a lot more cluttered with the defects coming in.

Categorization of cards is not available

The gist of the project at any given point in time will be difficult to achieve

Rapid Board (Scrum – Coming Soon) :)

Scrum is a method of development where the focus is on planning, committing and delivering time-boxed chunks of work called Sprints.

Presets are:

Story Points as column statistic

Two-week iterations (starting today)

Velocity (evidence-based scheduling)

Standard Quick Filters

Issues ordered by Rank

Columns: To Do, In Progress, Done

Scrum option coming soon

My Opinion:There are good charts for trends, burndown charts and timelines... with the rapid board.

The same can be achieved with the current dashboard functionality along with the desired charts.

I couldn't find a specific usecase, to move towards Greenhopper as the dashboard can be made self-sufficient.

With its amazing defect tracking features, I thought greenhopper would offer more. Looking forward for the Rapid board - SCRUM.

Overall the product has amazing quality. Wow! was the experience in installing and uninstalling Jira. There was not even one hiccup. Since I was accustomed to the features of Jira, figuring out the configuration was easy. But for some one new to Jira, it would be a bit difficult. The features wont be easy in predicting the sequence. Once you get a hang of it, it is a child's play!

Practice or Process?

It is tricky being a practice or a process person. There is a subtle difference though
Some one said, " I don’t like processes, as I am a responsible person, leave it to my own way, I'll get it done!"
Later, he comes back and shares his view points on how to make the job easier by providing some insights.
He wanted those insights to be followed by everybody!! Wouldn’t that become a process, if that is enforced to maintain uniformity?
Instead, it would be lot more easier to follow, when the same person is willing to take ideas from others and fine tune his contribution.
That is how processes evolve. It is everybody's duty to revisit them to identify the gaps or evaluate the relevance and change them.
For a practice person, it is a different game. They'll tend to derive and follow the best practices and evaluate them time to time.
They'll never wait for an enforcement and will always volunteer and contribute to the betterment of the outcome.

User Story Template

Testplan constitution

Scope Layout

There are a lot of mind map tools that are available that can help us in preparing the scope layout.
But topology is a primitive method can serve us, when such tool is not in place.

It presents a pictorial scope of requirements under consideration for the current product/project/module

Topological Space

1. Collection/group of classifications with certain attributes together with Module names for the product

2. A geometric object with n number of attributes that can be n dimensional

3. The expansion of the object has to be continuous

Topological Space

1. Collection/group of classifications with certain attributes together with Module names for the product

2. A geometric object with n number of attributes that can be n dimensional

3. The expansion of the object has to be continuous

Fig Topological Space

Purpose

1. Pictorial layout/overview of requirements for various modules and scenarios

2. Track Status

E

D

S

                          Dataset                             TestCases                               Environment

G

Y

R

                          Not Started                    Awaiting Review                     Completed

 Fig Track Status

3. Possible coverage of requirements for the tests                   

4. Possible to incorporate the changes in the requirements

5. Possible place-holders for the items to be tracked later

Sample

Contd... (Part3)

The process improvements are useful only when success can be measured. The outcome should benefit all the stakeholders including top management, Product, development, QA  and CPS teams which should be a value add for the members.

The following are the metrics that would be used to measure the success of the process improvement changes

§  Uniformity in writing testcases

-      This would be easier to process the entire testcase suite from the excel to convert to any format that the test management tool requires.

§  Have an updated list of tests at any given instance

-      This kind of version control in place avoids the redundancy of the tests when the requirements change.

-      Also, this reduces the time taken to make the changes as the structure is well organized

§  Review with the checklists that is published

-      The avoids any major gaps in identifying all the scenarios that are required to test that particular feature

§  Defect tracking

-      The consolidation of the results or the snapshot of the project can be provided live at any moment.

-      Easier to know the state of the project with the charts and graphs and other important metrics that the tool provides.

-      This reduces a lot of manual labor and the time can be effectively spent for QA purposes

§  Number of critical defects found at the earliest

-      As the testcases are written based on the outlined methodologies in line with the published topology and assigned with priority the critical defects are found in the initial phase thereby avoiding the last minute emergency fixes

-      This enables us to stick to the deadline

§  The work is legible and a new member acquiring the knowledge transfer has a quick turn-around time

-      This reduces the time to ramp up the new members

§  Reduced number of defects from the customer

-      Reduced re-work after the release of the project to the customer increases customer satisfaction and reduces the overhead incurred .

Continuous improvement process should be engaged , for periodic review to find the gaps in them or to modify and replace them as required.

The main business objective is to deliver a quality product to the customer by meeting the customer’s expectations within the stipulated time with less overhead. The return on investment was put forward in the following terms

-      Finding the gaps in the requirements at the earliest

-      Identifying the design faults

-      Matching the planned effort with the actual

-      Finding the critical issues at the earliest

-      Reduced re-work

-      Quick turn-around time

-      Reduced cost by using tools effectively

-      Better visibility to the top management

-      Increased customer Satisfaction  

§  The identified processes should be incorporated along with the testplan and sessions were conducted to educate the team about the processes.

§  The member’s performance to be linked to adherence of the processes

§  Process improvement effort from the teams to be part of the recognitions

§  Assigned ownerships for the tasks

§  Day in a life scenarios were demonstrated while creating the process awareness among the members.

§  Recommendations, learnings and improvements to be carried over to the next project in the pipeline

§  Provision to engage the members to come up with continuous improvement processes, to reduce the turn-around time.

§  To acknowledge and reward the rightful candidates