About 2 months back when I wrote about my journey to becoming an independent consultant, I did not mention that I would be founding a company by end of June. I didn’t because I didn’t know that I am going to do it so soon.
This post is to announce that I have founded Test Mile Software and Services (www.testmile.com). All my services – consulting, coaching, interviewing, competency assessment would now be available via the newly created company.
This opens up the door to new possibilities. As a registered company, Test Mile can become a registered vendor for any company. Rather than being forced to sign up for projects through third party companies, which don’t necessarily align with the value which I wish to deliver, I can directly engage with all customers. This also gives an opportunity for providing great quality at highly competitive cost.
I have also reached out to some freelancers with specific skill-set who have agreed to work along with me in delivering projects that need a team, especially in the area of web performance testing and Python. Apart from my coaching programmes, Test Mile would also launch coaching programmes conducted by other skilled engineers, the discussions are on! I am processing requests for the apprenticeship programme that was launched. Till now, I haven’t found a suitable one , on whom I would like to invest my time and energy for becoming a skilled tester. Haven’t lost hope!
The good news is that Test Mile has already conducted its first public workshop, is conducting its first corporate workshop this weekend, is on its way to becoming a registered vendor for 3 large global companies, and has tied up with 2 training partners.
The Python books hosted on Testing Perspective would now be available on Test Mile – the links have been updated. There would much more content to be added soon in the form of online text content, videos, quizzes and so on.
Although I have posted the information about the company in a blog post on Test Mile website as well, I am putting it here for the sake of completeness of the post.
Meaning of the Company’s name – Test Mile
The word test mile comes from the locomotive industry where a test mile is a measured mile on the road which is used to test whether the speedometer of a vehicle is giving the right reading.
The word test mile is also used by writers, wherein they set a given number of words as the test mile for every day. They must cover this test mile irrespective of their mood, where they are, whether they have something concrete etc.
Both the above meanings complement each other in explaining Test Mile as the name of the company which focuses on providing software and services for testing software.
For every activity mile in software development, there must be atleast one test mile. There would be more as I explain below.
A test mile should represent a unique focus. Is it a functionality test mile? Is it a performance test mile? Would the test mile be covered from black-box or white-box perspective? Would it a dynamic test mile or a static one. Each one has its own test merit.
In a typical Agile or Agile-inspired environment, you might need 3 test miles with unique focus for every other activity mile. The test mile could, for example, drive the development, another is executed along the development and still another follows it to see how it integrates with other components.
If software testing comes into picture once the software is developed, it can find a sub-set of bugs in software, some of which would be very costly to fix. The ones which are not found could surface in production and would be the costliest ones.
We can not beat Quality into the system by testing at last minute. We must build quality into software right from the beginning and at every stage. Every stage and every activity mile needs one or more test miles.
Motto – Test What You Value
The motto is simple yet powerful. It essentially delivers two important messages:
- If you value something, test it
- You must test something for attributes that you value the most
At Test Mile, assessment of risk/value and prioritization of testing accordingly is not optional, it is the default. It forms an essential part of the Unified Testing Approach that we advocate.
Following are some links to keep yourself updated with Test Mile‘s news, articles, testing resources. You all have supported Testing Perspective a lot. I request you to share/like the following to spread the news about Test Mile. The company at the time of publishing this post has 50+ followers/likes on Facebook and Twitter and 1000+ impressions about its services on Linked-In. It also has 3 recommendations for a sub-set of its services from professionals working for companies like McAfee India, Ness and Sutra.
What Happens To Testing Perspective
Testing Perspective is and would remain a personal platform for me to reach out to testers in a non-business context. The site would now on be mostly a blog wherein I express my views on software testing and share information. I strongly believe that Testing Perspective should continue as a place where I can freely debate on certain views rather than imposing the same on Test Mile as a company.
In the initial few months, the workshops conducted via Test Mile would have a corresponding announcement on Testing Perspective. As this would slowly reduce, I suggest you to subscribe to the mentioned links to remain posted.
Congratulations 🙂 All the best. Looking forward for more and more updates. Rock it.
Thanks Santhosh!
I’ll give my best! God will rock it! 🙂
Congratulations Sir…:)
Congrats sir 🙂 — Journey begins again…
@Sudheer, Srinivas,
Thanks!
Excellent… All the best Rahul
Thanks Anand