STAG Software

23/05/2025

STAG celebrates its Silver Anniversary this month!

04/06/2022

A heartfelt thank you to all STAGians ex and current on the 22nd anniversary.

22/02/2022

In today’s world of rapid development using cutting edge tech for customers who expect more, what is needed from young QA folks?

It is “SmartQA”.

To explore, to question, to be comfortable with technology & programming, design smartly, iterate constantly, and automate appropriately. Never the typically touted dichotomy of manual & automated testing, that of just knowing testing & tools.

Our 12-week SmartQA Digital Mentoring Program strives to do this precisely- equip young graduates with Smart QA mindset, make them comfortable with tech & programming, become familiar with modern test tools and strong in test engineering aspects of exploration, understanding and design. To enable them to be Smart SDETs to deliver high value in validating products/apps built using modern engineering.

Online digital program commences Mar 7, 2022.

https://stagsoftware.com/smarttester

11/02/2022

11/02/2022

SmartTester Digital Mentoring Program

10/02/2022

12-week SmartTester Digital Mentorship program (Mar 7, 22).

STAG is conducting an intense 12-week online mentorship program to groom young smart testers. Having groomed mentees who are now part of STAG, we have found this to be immensely successful. Now we are launching an online version of the same mentoring program as “SmartTester Digital” to groom young testers for the industry. The program’s focus is to create ‘full-stack’ test engineer(s) adept in testing the modern digital application stack.

The 12-week program is unique with its extreme focus on doing, rather than mere learning, encompassing mindset, questioning, design, technology & tools. If you know fresh graduate(s) (Engg/MCA) keen on a career in software testing, please ask them to checkout the link below. Online digital program commences Mar 7, 2022.

https://stagsoftware.com/smarttester

Become a full stack tester in 12 weeks.Ace QA job interviews.  Highlights12 week duration, ONLINE mode (starts Mar 7, ’22)Daily self paced learningTwo online mentoring sessions/weekIntense focus on doingPlacement assistance Entry criteriaBE/BTech/MCA/BCA/MSc(CS) streamCompleted with 60% aggregate...

02/12/2021

THIRD SmartQA Mentorship program commencing on Dec 13, 2021.

STAG is conducting an intense 12-week paid mentorship program to groom SmartQA professionals who will become part of STAG after this program. This is not a virtual class program but a serious in-company physical mentorship program where you learn by doing not listening. This program’s focus is to create ‘full-stack’ test engineer(s) adept in testing the modern digital application stack.

This is the announcement for third batch (in the last quarter) that commences on Dec 13, 2021. If you know any fresh graduate (Engg/MCA) interested in a job opportunity program in software testing, ask them to checkout the link. Intake is very limited.
(If your company is keen on well groomed SmartQA professionals, get in touch with us at [email protected])

A focussed and intense twelve week paid mentorship program to groom SmartQA professionals who will become part of STAG test engineering team. This is full time mentoring program that is *not virtual*, this will be at STAG office (Bangalore). Limited participants only. Starts Dec 13 2021. Industry vi...

04/10/2021

We are conducting a focussed & intense twelve week paid mentorship program to groom SmartQA professionals who will become part of STAG after this program. This a not a virtual class program but a serious in-company physical mentorship program where you learn by doing, not listening.

If you are a fresh graduate (Engg/MCA) or know one who is interested in a job opportunity program in software test engineering, then checkout the link. Intake is very limited.
stagsoftware.com/jobprogram

A focussed and intense twelve week paid mentorship program to groom SmartQA professionals who will become part of STAG test engineering team.  This is full time mentoring program that is *not virtual*, this will be at STAG office (Bangalore). Limited participants only.  The program commences on Oc...

05/07/2021

“We track a lot of metrics related to progress of development and quality every sprint, like backlogs, technical debt, velocity, task status etc. What is not very evident is the ‘quality of movement’ i.e. how well done, so that we create less debt as we move. How can I get a better insight of the quality of tests done and a more objective measure of product quality?”

Extrinsic metrics are easier to measure and give visibility of direction, progress, speed and external feel of product quality. Intrinsic metrics are deeper, harder to measure but can give greater insight into the quality of work. Measuring this requires a good structure and organisation of test artefacts. The benefit - a greater insight into effectiveness of outcome and therefore lower technical debt & greater acceleration, don’t you think?

Metrics can be classified as measuring work progress, work quality, product quality and practice quality. Except for the first one on work progress where we have a lot of measures facilitated by project and test management tools, the others depend on test organisation and clarity of types of issues to uncover. ‘Quality Levels’ based on HBT (Hypothesis Based Testing - hbtcentral.org) provides a strong foundation for these, enabling you to assess potential test effectiveness, judge product quality objectively and fine tune practice quality.

If you are keen on “insightful quality metrics”, then you may find our SmartQA consulting (stagsoftware.com/smartqa) interesting, where we unshackle your practice so that you can see clearly and do far better.

28/06/2021

“As we embrace faster release cycles, testing has become a bottleneck. Yes, we have embraced automation as the way forward. We have a huge regression suite and therefore a big backlog for automation, a tough balance to speed up and yet maintain the fast paced release rhythm. What can I do?”

Automated tests are great to monitor a system’s health. Rather than just use regression as the candidate for automation, key flows that signify the pulse of a system's health are superior, don’t you think? And, this won’t create a huge backlog for automation, right?

Most often I have seen automation embraced as the solution to speed up testing. Conceptually correct it is, the problem is - what makes it worth the while to automate? Automated tests have to be in sync with the product and are therefore not a one time effort.

Choosing the right ones implies, it needs to be at the level of user flow, and be a clear indicator of health. Unless test scenarios are well structured and organised, choosing the right ones will turn out to be difficult, and ultimately weigh you down. It then becomes a pursuit of catching up with automation rather than making it work for you.

The goal is not 100% automation, it really is no leakage of defects. Automated tests are really ‘checks’ that assess key paths for good health (correctness) while intelligent human tests are focused on finding issues(robustness). A harmonious balance between these two enables clean code to be delivered without being weighed down by automation.

If you are “weighed down by automation“, then you may find our SmartQA consulting (stagsoftware.com/smartqa) interesting, where we unshackle your practice so that you can exploit technology.

24/06/2021

“We know that doing early dev test is superior. Despite requisite focus, we don’t seem to be effective. QA finds issues that can be found earlier, wasting bandwidth, missing out issues in real life user flows.“

DevTest would be strengthened if specific types of issues were stated as its target, right? And these could be detected via DevTest, code review or smart checklists, right?

A typical problem that I have seen is the lack of clear partitioning of what issues to focus on, in DevTest and SystemTest. The result - a porous gate between early and late stage testing, resulting in high internal defect leakage, strangling effectiveness of QA. Automation of DevTest is powerful, very potent if DevTest cases are sharp and focussed.

An approach that does not create more work for developers or upset the development rhythm is paramount to the success of DevTest. Smart Checklist is a brilliant tool for this. (The book “The Checklist Manifesto “by Atul Gawande is an illuminating read).

We have seen remarkable improvement in overall quality via “left-shifting”, reducing internal leakage by well over 50%. In today’s age of rapid development and frequent releases, strengthening early DevTest has a multi-fold effect on product QA.

If you are troubled by “poor development testing”, then you may find our SmartQA consulting (stagsoftware.com/smartqa) interesting, where we unshackle your practice so that you accomplish more with less.

23/06/2021

“Our product is complex and used in myriad interesting ways on different environments. We seem to be discovering a variety of issues continually on the field. Wonder if our tests and test cases are adequate? We do have a lot of test cases, but are we effective?” asked an Engineering Director of a global product company.

How can I tighten the noose? How can I enhance the filter?

Most often I have seen as practice, that test scenarios/cases are designed solely based on one’s experience. This, though valuable, poses a challenge - “How do I logically conclude that it is sufficient, adequate?”

Well, one cannot surmise that all scenarios can indeed be thought of a-priori; as during the act of ex*****on, we do discover potentially interesting failure cases. The intent to question completeness however is very useful, as it allows one to question deeply, which really is what brilliant testing is all about.

A behaviour driven approach to test design ensures a mindset to extract conditions from requirements, understand perturbations from other parts of system leading to ‘robust test design’. After all, a good filter tightens the noose!

If you are challenged by “test adequacy”, then you may find our SmartQA consulting (stagsoftware.com/smartqa) interesting, where we unshackle your practice so that you can exploit technology.