Welcome to the July newsletter.  In this newsletter, we initiate a new series that we're excited about: guest featured articles.  Approximately every other newsletter will feature an article from a fellow testing, quality, or software engineering expert, illustrating some key idea that we find very important at RBCS.

 

To inaugurate this series, we're proud to have an article from Capers Jones.  Capers is Chief Scientist Emeritus of Software Productivity Research (SPR), an author of numerous useful books on software metrics (including testing and quality metrics) and software engineering,  and a pioneer in the fields of software estimation and software sizing (in particular with function points). 

 

I have relied on Capers' metrics for benchmarking on a number of engagements.  We're very pleased to offer you access to the fine article that Capers has provided, which will give you a number of useful ideas and useful metrics to consider as you assess the state of quality and testing in your organization.

 

Speaking of SPR, RBCS and SPR have joined forces to offer a unique set of assessment packages for their clients.  One such service involves a joint assessment with RBCS and SPR consultants where we benchmark the organization's testing and quality capabilities against SPR's industry-leading database of metrics from thousands of projects.  Another such service involves a joint assessment where RBCS consultants augment the SPR team to provide thorough analysis of the testing aspects of the organization's capabilities.  These services will allow assessed organizations to gain tremendous insight into their testing and quality capabilities in relation to industry practices. 

 

For those of you looking to learn new ways to move defect discovery and removal upstream in your projects, we're proud to offer a new class on technical inspections from Professor Paul Jorgensen.  You'll find more details on this class below, including links to public course dates and the outline.

 

In addition, we have a few ISTQB-related announcements to make in this newsletter.  From Advanced course accreditation to Advanced books to Advanced e-learning, there's interesting news for those of you moving to the Advanced level of ISTQB certification.   Finally, we have some news about two interesting conferences, the devLINK conference in Nashville, where I'll be speaking, and the CAST conference in Toronto, which RBCS is sponsoring.  Assuming my keynote goes well at devLINK, I can always say that, for one moment at least, I was very popular in the cultural capital of country music!  The few of you who have been unfortunate enough to hear me sing know what an improbable event that is.

 

So, as you can see we at RBCS have been busy the last couple months.  It shows in the volume of information in this newsletter.  We hope you find it informative and useful.

 

Regards,
Rex Black, President