The 2008 inaugural release of Rational Quality Manager introduced a new approach to test case management. The Rational Quality Manager dynamic test plan allowed test cases to be associated to a test plan in a non-hierarchical nature. There are many benefits to this approach, the main being that in a distributed test team, where many people are working off a test plan, having tests tied to a hierarchy often makes them difficult to find. While the categorization, of filing of test cases in folders of folders of folders might seem logical and simple to the person who originally created and organized the structure might seem logical and obvious, for anyone coming in new to the structure, navigation is much more difficult.
You can think of this as similar to the way Google and Yahoo took to indexing the web. Yahoo originally, and still available today, used hierarchical directories to categorize web content. Google of course simply put all websites into one group, and enabled you to find what you were looking for with a powerful search facility. Both valid approaches, but how do you find what you want on the web? Exactly.
What made Rational Quality Manager approach possible was the advanced tagging and searching mechanism. Using a paradigm similar to the Google approach, all test cases are stored in one bucket, with a very powerful and fast search feature that enables you to find what you are looking for based on all the common identifying properties of a test case such as names or tags. Rational Quality Manager’s web 2.0 sytle dynamic filtering further enhances this, enabling you to see search results returned as you type.
Hierarchies, however, are not without their benefits. Viewed from above, they provide a good graphical representation of content. You can quickly see relationships between artifacts and get an idea of the number of artifacts in a certain area, such as the number of test cases for a given requirement.
Accordingly, new in Rational Quality Manager 2.0 is a hierarchical view of assets. In this tree view you can see how the Viscosity Defect is attached to the Viscosity Execution of the Viscosity Test, attached to the Viscosity Test Case of the Viscosity Requirement in the Red Test Plan in the Paint Shop project.
This powerful new view enables testers to visualize relationships while still being able to leverage the powerful searching and tagging facilities for finding test cases. Two approaches to viewing your data, with two different benefits makes this one of Rational Quality Manager 2.0’s most powerful features.
If you were at the Rational Software Conference 2009 you got wind of some of the new features headed our way in Rational Quality Manager 2.0. With the arrival of Beta 2.0 you can now download the latest and have a look at some of the key features:
Risk Based Testing
Productivity Boosters
Reporting and Closed Loop Analysis
Over the next few weeks we’ll look a little closer at these features, and dive deep into how you can use these features to manage the risk associated with your quality management projects.
“What is Rational Quality Manager” and “How do I get started”. Those are two questions that we hear on a daily basis. The answer is pretty simple, but nothing we’ve ever documented, so accordingly, here is how we suggest you get to know, learn and love Rational Quality Manager.
Step 1: Learn the basics of quality management. Some great resources to get started with are:
Video: Quality Management in 3 Minutes explains the basics of Quality Management at a high level. No big words, so this one is safe for managers.
The Rational Quality Manager Tidbits series on our YouTube channel drills one level deeper on some of the key features of Quality Manager. Each tidbit is only a few minutes long, and explains one interesting feature about the tool
Step 3: Now that you’ve got the basics down, dig a little deeper on Rational Quality Manager
There is a series of articles on Using Rational Quality Manager for the First Timeon developerWorks. This series will guide you though all the major phases of managing a quality assurance project with Rational Quality Manager
Step 4: Now that you have a good understand Quality Management and Rational Quality Manager, the following will help you go even deeper in the topic and our portfolio
Additional Rational Podcasts. A general site with various Rational podcasts – including one about this blog entry!
Keep up to date with the development team. jazz.net is the development site for the Rational Jazz initiative, the foundation upon which RQM is built. Follow development projects and milestones, interact with development teams, get the latest product betas, and join the community discussions.
There you have it – everything you need to know about Rational Quality Manager in 4 steps!
The Rational Software Conference Spring Fever discount ends today! If you’re thinking about attending the conference this year – this is your last chance to get the discount. You won’t get a better offer than this. Now is the time.
Every once in a while, I get a sneak peek into to Rational Quality Manager and Rational Test Lab Manager development shops to see what’s going on. The other day, this is what I saw…
Quality Manager and Lab Manager Google Maps Mashup
What is it?
It’s a Google Maps mash up with Rational Quality Manager and Rational Test Lab Manager. It’s still in the early phases, but some of the thinking is for large distributed organizations, it gives you a way to visualize your lab assets from a geographic location perspective. How cool?
What could possible be next? Twitter integration for live test execution results reporting? Nahhhhh…
The Rational Software Conference team has just announced a new promotion code to save $300 off of your conference registration. Register for the conference and enter in the promo code APRIL, and you’ll get the discount. Not surprisingly, this offer expires at the end of the month.
The conference will have a ton of Rational Quality Manager content, and we’ll be previewing some of that here over the next two months. Stay tuned – next up, info on migrating to RQM.
For the unfamiliar, Jazz.net is IBM Rational’s foray in open commercial development. In simple terms, we’re opening up the door to our back office. On Jazz.net you now have visibility into the inner workings of the Rational Quality Manager and Rational Test Lab Manager development team. How open is the door, here’s a sample of what’s now available according to project manager Brian Massey:
The Rational Software Conference 2009 (RSC 2009) is all set to go live in Orlando, May 31st to June 4th in Orlando Florida. As you may recall, at last year’s conference we introduced what was then the public beta of Rational Quality Manager.
This year at the Rational Software Conference 2009, we’re highlighting several Rational Quality Manager based sessions. Over the next few weeks we’ll be previewing some of those sessions here. Today we begin with Brian Massey’s “What’s New in IBM Rational Quality Manager”
This session runs on Monday at 11:15. The speaker, Brian Massey is the product manager for Rational Quality Manager. Brian plans to talk about some of the recent developments in the 1.0.1 release as well as taking a sneak peak ahead into plans for Rational Quality Manager 2.0. This session is a great opportunity to get some insight into the direction of Rational Quality Manager as well as an opportunity to meet the product manager.
IBM Rational Quality Manager facilitates team collaboration through its Web 2.0 based architecture and features such as work items and task lists which keep team members up to date on what is expected from them and what they can expect from others. All good. Yay.
How though, can IBM Rational Quality Manager enable collaboration with external parties, or internal co-workers who (sadly) may not have access to Quality Manager. How about twitter? For those unfamiliar, twitter is a social media collaboration tool where users send brief status messages to one another to keep each other appraised of their current status or needs.
In this Tidbit installment we’ll show how IBM Rational Quality Manager can add a twitter feed to its Web 2.0 dashboard so that users are always aware and informed of what others, in the twitter world, are up to.
In the spirit of collaboration, the Quality Manager team has asked one of our premier partners, Sogeti, to come speak on our teleconference series. Why? Simple – late last year, Sogeti started a pilot project that saw them move 40 of their quality assurance professionals, across 4 projects, from HP Mercury Quality Center to IBM Rational Quality Manager. Sign up for the teleconference to hear why they made, the move, how they did in in a very fast time frame, and what technical and business challenges they encountered along the way. It’s a great opportunity to learn, on an interactive call where you are invited to participate in the discussion in real time. If you can’t make the time, the call will be recorded for subsequent replay. See you there
