Implementing a Testing Centre of Excellence — A 1 day course

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 Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

A central, shared testing team has many attractions for a business and can provide an attractive option for improving the testing function - yet reducing costs. To set up a Testing Centre of Excellence can be expensive and time consuming. If the Centre of Excellence is set up correctly, these costs will be minimized and the business will quickly recoup these costs and achieve extensive additional benefits. There are many steps to achieving the goal of a Centre of Excellence.

This workshop will detail how a successful Centre of Excellence can be set up, will relate the criteria to attendees own requirements and show how to contain the costs; and the organisational requirements needed for success.

The workshop will cover issues, objections and obstructions often encountered when setting up a Centre of Excellence, and will provide answers and counter arguments that have been effective in successful Centre of Excellence projects.

The advantages that a Testing Centre of Excellence will deliver to a business and to a testing project are described and detailed. The differences and specific advantages delivered by an in-house and an outsourced Testing Centre of Excellence are shown and calculated.

Objectives

On completion of this course, attendees will:

• Understand what is required to set up and run a Testing Centre of Excellence
• Be able to asses current and future business needs and requirements, calculate how improvements can be made and the benefits that would be accrued
• Be able to quantify and report the advantages the Centre of Excellence will deliver to the testing programme and to the business
• Be able to instigate process improvement programmes, asset management programmes, best practices, resource management and motivational programmes and communication strategies for maximum effect
• Be able to set up and run a Test Competency Centre in the most efficient manner
• Be able to effectively collect, analyse and interpret the metrics generated by the Testing Centre of Excellence and report these to senior management

Suitable For

Quality assurance engineers, Test Managers, Project Managers.

Prerequisites

There are no pre-requisites for this course.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Contents

What is a Testing Centre of Excellence?

• Why a Testing Centre of Excellence should be considered
• What gains the business and the testing programme should expect from deploying a Testing Centre of Excellence?

The key components of a Testing Centre of Excellence

• People and resources required for success
• Best practices, tools and processes and how they should be deployed for maximum effect
• Test Asset Management and the role it plays in a Testing Centre of Excellence
• Metrics and measurements and their effective management

Resourcing

• Methods for attracting and motivating the best candidates
• Strategies for maximizing resource management
• Competencies and career management strategies

Sourcing

• Principles of sourcing
• Benefits of outsourcing versus in-house

Metrics

• The metrics cycle
• Purpose and analysis of metrics
• Sources of metrics
• How to report results effectively

Quality

• Testing and Quality as a change enabler and how to apply it effectively
• How testing can improve quality and increase efficiency
• How testing can reduce costs