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Achieving Product-Customer Fit Using a Value Proposition Canvas
The end goal of any entrepreneur is to generate profit through the products they are working on. To reach this goal these individuals simply need to ensure that the values they offer to the end customers through these products are needed and worth the customers spending their hard earned money on. However, Simon.Kucher & Partners … Continue reading “Achieving Product-Customer Fit Using a Value Proposition Canvas”
Chop-chop! It’s time to INVEST in User Stories!
User Stories! they do sound simple when we hear them for the first time. Surprisingly, it is not the case when taking up the actual job. Writing user stories in such a way to minimize the ambiguity, inter-dependency etc. while maximizing the value to the stakeholders is not always simple. I have encountered the same … Continue reading “Chop-chop! It’s time to INVEST in User Stories!”
Applications for RFID in the new normal
Due to the ongoing global pandemic situation, health has become a global concern and a priority. People are paying much attention to social distancing, limiting the time spent within communities and contactless access to daily activities. In this backdrop, RFID becomes a key enabler for many types of solutions. RFID is not new to the … Continue reading “Applications for RFID in the new normal”
Your Beginning Doesn’t Define Your End
Since childhood, I have been very fond of drawing. It fascinated me how I was able to express what is on my mind through drawings. Back then I didn’t have a passion to be an artist. I just liked drawing something whenever I had free time on my hands. When it came to A/L stream … Continue reading “Your Beginning Doesn’t Define Your End”
Moscow is not just a city in Russia
The scenic, historic city of Russia, would probably come into your mind when you hear the word ‘Moscow’. Would you be surprised to learn that Moscow is not just the capital of Russia but also a very important prioritization technique that is used to decide what should be built and shipped in project deliveries all … Continue reading “Moscow is not just a city in Russia”
The blurred line between BA and UX
In almost every project, tensions, conflicts and disagreements between Business Analysts and User Experience Engineers never end. But the above roles have much similar work than they may appear at first glance. Overlapping and distinct responsibilities of BAs and UXers might make them rethink where their specialized skills will be most useful and applied. While … Continue reading “The blurred line between BA and UX”
How Business Analyst can add value in the SSDLC
Introduction Overview The role of the Business Analyst (BA) is generally understood as the stakeholder who is responsible for managing the software requirements. While it briefly adds who a business analyst is, the real role goes beyond that. BA implies from the brainstorming phase of the project to its decomposition. In each of these phases, … Continue reading “How Business Analyst can add value in the SSDLC”
Pair Testing: How To Get The Maximum Out Of It.
Among many test techniques that are out there in Software QA discipline, Pair Testing has been a long-standing technique used by Quality Engineers to track and verify issues. But due to how it’s practised and the time constraints, pair testing tends to be left out. Knowing when to use Pair testing will enable you to … Continue reading “Pair Testing: How To Get The Maximum Out Of It.”
The Role of Big Data & Data Science in Today’s Marketing World
Back in the day, Marketing was a top-down process that is creative-led. We call that “Mass Marketing”.Where some brilliant minds get together and come up with slogans and phrases, which will push downto the audience hoping that they will resonate on it. It’s creative, but basically it’s guesswork. They had focus groups to try on … Continue reading “The Role of Big Data & Data Science in Today’s Marketing World”
A New Take on Caching
Any application out there in the world, especially production level applications possess a huge amount of data. These are obviously stored in a secure location. But every time the application is in need of using these data, it has to access those storages. This practice arouses a few inconveniences when the data is required faster … Continue reading “A New Take on Caching”
Choosing the Right Algorithm at the Right Time – The Science of Impactful Product Recommendations
With the evolution of technology, online retail shopping has come into action, playing a major role in the modern world. A personalized recommendation system aims at identifying products that are of most relevance to a user, based on their past interactions. This enhances a user’s intention to browse more products and makes them more likely … Continue reading “Choosing the Right Algorithm at the Right Time – The Science of Impactful Product Recommendations”
Common Design Patterns every Test Automation Engineer should know
In software design, design patterns are created to solve common problems. This doesn’t seem to be widely discussed in software automation, because the topic sounds complicated. There are sophisticated design patterns used to solve complex issues in software development. Also there are easy to understand and easily adoptable design patterns that can significantly improve readability … Continue reading “Common Design Patterns every Test Automation Engineer should know”
Importance of AI for test automation
Software Testing Evolution In software development life cycle, software testing has higher importance. Even though developers develop according to requirement, during testing only we make sure that everything meets the expectation. When looking at past decades, it is quite evident that software testing has gradually evolved. At the first stage, testing started only after the … Continue reading “Importance of AI for test automation”
IoT Security Testing – Identifying the Scope
IoT (Internet of Things); Where it stands now? A couple of years back only a handful of people who were involved in the subject knew what IoT is all about. IoT or Internet of Things you should know by now. It’s revolutionized the way we interact with the day-to-day devices and of course technology is … Continue reading “IoT Security Testing – Identifying the Scope”
Managing and leading project deliveries with remote teams
Managing and leading project deliveries with remote teams With the world facing challenges of unprecedented proportions due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, countries, governments, industries, organizations and individuals are all being forced to look at new ways of working to ensure that their economies function to some extent. For some organizations and individuals, this means … Continue reading “Managing and leading project deliveries with remote teams”
Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation Today, the world is moving forward with variants of technologies. As a result of that, the future workplace will be blend with human and software bots. This human and software bots relationship will create many exciting opportunities for the world. Are you ready for that challenge? If not, now would be an … Continue reading “Robotic Process Automation”
Woes of a Fleet Support Engineer During a Pandemic
Synopsis Pandemics such as COVID-19 lead many organizations to request their employees around the world to adapt to work from home (WFH), while attempting to run operations in unaffected regions as efficiently as possible. This is especially true for organizations that have large global transport and logistics operations. Technology such as wearables and handheld smart … Continue reading “Woes of a Fleet Support Engineer During a Pandemic”
Investing on prevention vs investing on cure – Testing common vulnerabilities in the World Wide Web.
Do you remember the last time you lost something valuable, something that would cost you a sentimental value? Believe me it is better than the only breadwinner in the family losing their monthly income as the company they worked for lost more than $6 trillion each year, the reason behind it being the most critical … Continue reading “Investing on prevention vs investing on cure – Testing common vulnerabilities in the World Wide Web.”
Benefits of the Right Remote Monitoring & Troubleshooting (RMT) Solution to IT Support Teams
Synopsis We are in an age where the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed organizations to adapt to remote working. L1, L2 and L3 support teams are some of the most affected by this change. We discuss why this situation impacts these support teams and how they need to adapt to run like a well-oiled machine, when … Continue reading “Benefits of the Right Remote Monitoring & Troubleshooting (RMT) Solution to IT Support Teams”
Towards SOC Compliance
Continuous business value creation while handling customers’ data in a secure way is a must for SaaS (Software as a Service) providers to survive in today’s rapidly changing, highly coupled and deadly competitive business environment. Even though the organizations follow their own techniques and processes, customers expect some kind of mutually recognized guarantee to ensure … Continue reading “Towards SOC Compliance”
Execute Testing on Autonomous Robot Platform
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, computer science, and much more. Robotics deals with the design, construction, operation, and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing. A robot is a machine programmable by a computer … Continue reading “Execute Testing on Autonomous Robot Platform”
Five Things to Consider When Selecting your RFID Solutions Partner
The Selection of an appropriate RFID solutions partner is a key consideration for any organization planning to deploy RFID. While there are a number of leading solution providers, reputation alone is not the only factor which should be considered when making this choice. A lot depends on the project approach adopted by the solutions provider. … Continue reading “Five Things to Consider When Selecting your RFID Solutions Partner”
Test Design Technique – Equivalence Partitioning
“Your test equipment is lying to you and it is your job to figure out how.” Charles Rush What is a software test design technique? Why do we need to use a technique for testing? Software test design technique is a method, which a quality assurance engineer can use to derive test cases, test scenarios … Continue reading “Test Design Technique – Equivalence Partitioning”
Reduce Cost and Improve Quality with Defect Prevention
What do clients expect from a Quality Assurance Engineer? A lengthy list of the defects you have found or a high-quality software product within a low production cost and time? Defects do not add significant value to the software development process since the occurrence of the defects has become the main reason behind increases in … Continue reading “Reduce Cost and Improve Quality with Defect Prevention”
Stepping into AIOps: IT Operations meet Artificial Intelligence
Digitization has transformed the enterprise IT landscape of large organizations. The speed, scale, and complexity of multi-cloud infrastructure demand an innovative approach to meet the ever-increasing operational demands. In this context, a single IT support engineer should be enabled to handle a much broader scope than before. This is where AIOps comes into the picture. … Continue reading “Stepping into AIOps: IT Operations meet Artificial Intelligence”
Is RFID for you? – What to know before you start your RFID journey
RFID has been around for a long time. Some companies who did get on the RFID bandwagon quite early had mixed results and questionable ROI. However, over the last few years, more and more companies across multiple industries have reported successful deployments. Like with any technology deployment, success very much depends on the underlying business … Continue reading “Is RFID for you? – What to know before you start your RFID journey”
Why Ensuring Quality is Paramount in E-Commerce?
E-Commerce is a dynamic industry, which is growing rapidly across the world. Lately, online shopping has been more popular when compared with physical stores due to the ease of finding anything that needs to be purchased immediately. With all this hype on the E-Commerce platforms, competition among the sellers and the expectations of the customers … Continue reading “Why Ensuring Quality is Paramount in E-Commerce?”
Take Maximum Out of Quality Metrics
Have you ever felt calculating and presenting quality metrics as a useless, time-consuming cumbersome task? If your answer is yes, then it seems you are not using the correct quality metrics to measure the quality of your application/release build or you are not aware of how quality metrics can be utilized to improve the quality … Continue reading “Take Maximum Out of Quality Metrics”
Understanding Technological Disruption in Warehousing, Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Abstract Disruption from Digital Technology has pervaded every industry including Warehousing, Logistics and Supply Management Sector Modern warehouses increasingly use technologies such as Warehouse Management Systems, RFID, Barcode, OCR and Voice Guidance Systems These technologies help warehouses to reap substantial benefits such as reduced labor costs, increased efficiency and improved process optimisation With technology, most … Continue reading “Understanding Technological Disruption in Warehousing, Logistics and Supply Chain Management”
Visual Design – Icing on the Cake
It’s a lot more than what meets the eye! We once lived in an era where people only expected the products to be functional as it was required. If it worked right, it was all they wanted. Then became another, where people were thrilled by new technological features in products. They were very satisfied by … Continue reading “Visual Design – Icing on the Cake”
To build or to buy a Test Automation Tool
Should I build or should I buy? As continuous integration and development shift the momentum of software delivery to a higher gear, testing teams need to upscale their test strategies. We talk about faster and frequent deliveries with higher quality. We stress on tools that lubricate efficient and effective software delivery. Therefore, quality of these … Continue reading “To build or to buy a Test Automation Tool”
A Story of Sri Lanka’s Unheralded Pride
If you ask any foreigner who visits Sri Lanka to describe Sri Lanka and its people, they all would very uncannily say a few common things; an elaborate praise for Sri Lanka’s natural beauty, awe at Sri Lanka’s proud and exquisite heritage, exaltation after having been exposed to Sri Lanka’s exotic and delectable cuisine – … Continue reading “A Story of Sri Lanka’s Unheralded Pride”
Sri Lankan IT Students: Among the World’s Finest
Sri Lanka has a history of producing some of the world’s finest IT graduates. However, this information is not widely known enough. There are many instances where the skill, talent and the dedication of our people have shone through and The Google Summer of Code program is one such occasion. Google Summer of Code is … Continue reading “Sri Lankan IT Students: Among the World’s Finest”
Exploring BDD with Specflow
Introduction on BDD One of the biggest challenges faced by development teams today is understanding and implementing the exact requirements of the product owner. Dan North’s amazing software development method BDD (Behaviour Driven Development) reduced the requirements knowledge gap between product owners and developers. In addition, it bridged the domain knowledge gap between developers and … Continue reading “Exploring BDD with Specflow”
How you would test a microservices architecture?
First of all, did you ever thought of this topic as an employee who ensuring the quality of the product and worrying to release your product almost bug-free to UAT? Yes, I am talking about testers who think upside down when it comes to test planning in a new testing engagement. “What is the architecture I … Continue reading “How you would test a microservices architecture?”
Splitting Estimation
In agile testing, as all are aware, we need to estimate the time for the items that we take to the current sprint. Even though we usually give one figure either in hours or in days, frankly, there areso many sub tasks that are hidden in our main test task. So not only should requirement … Continue reading “Splitting Estimation”
Data Science Quality Assurance Kickoff
What is Data Science? Well in simple terms you could say it is the “Studying of Data”. Nowadays Data Science has become a prominent subject since it plays a major role in assisting industries with predictions and analysis which has become handy when making their business decisions. Some of the actual use cases of Data … Continue reading “Data Science Quality Assurance Kickoff”
“Inspiring Emotions” – The Story of Zone24x7’s Unique Ethos That Fuels Our Innovative Solutions
Do you remember the last time you got absolutely awed by something? So awed that you kept going back to that experience, you wanted to relive it as much as you want, you felt surreal. It was an experience so visceral, you briefly forgot your reality, you temporarily forgive yourself for your sorrows, you briefly … Continue reading ““Inspiring Emotions” – The Story of Zone24x7’s Unique Ethos That Fuels Our Innovative Solutions”
Go mouse-less for an hour – Insight into Accessibility Testing
Computer mouse has become a device that plays a significant role in the IT industry. It truly does wonders to make our work easier. Yet, I’d like to challenge you all to use only the keyboard for navigation purposes for an hour and surf your web application or system to get a completely new level … Continue reading “Go mouse-less for an hour – Insight into Accessibility Testing”
Collaborating for Quality – Pair Testing
Software Quality Assurance is evolving day by day in terms of the tools and processes. QA Engineers often adopt new processes in to the Software Development Lifecycle to improve the quality. When we think of software testing, we probably imagine a single person sitting at his/her computer executing tests. Pair Testing changes the traditional way … Continue reading “Collaborating for Quality – Pair Testing”
The Future of Software QA
When I joined the IT industry back in 2013, Software Quality assurance was a stable knowledge domain and the Job Description consisted of tasks, which provided opportunity and expectation of a good career as a QA engineer. Over the course of just 4 years’ time, Software QA has become a domain that is equally technical, … Continue reading “The Future of Software QA”
How Many Test Cases Do You Need? How Many Do You Have?
A recent discussion with a top-brass individual in Software QA Domain, brought up this very question, which I really didn’t bother about for the past seven years as a QA professional. After the discussion was over, I managed to find some time to reflect on it. Does it matter how many test cases are there … Continue reading “How Many Test Cases Do You Need? How Many Do You Have?”
The Challenges and Struggles Software Engineers Face Today
As cliche as it may sound, Software is indeed everywhere. What Marc Andreessen wrote then under ‘Why Software is Eating the World‘ has exploded even more today. Companies are racing to be at the forefront of the digital revolution. There’s even talk of how software development can become so mainstream that it will be the next blue … Continue reading “The Challenges and Struggles Software Engineers Face Today”
101: Bluetooth in a Nutshell
Hello everyone, so this is going to be the last episode of the 1st series of ZoneCast. This present collection of episodes primarily tried to cover the basics of most talked about and buzzing technologies today. In Series 2, we are going a bit further and tackle pressing issues and implications of various technologies in … Continue reading “101: Bluetooth in a Nutshell”
How Quantum Computing can Revolutionize Technology
Our lives, at present are highly dependent on technology. It has revolutionised our lifestyles entirely. From ways we communicate to the means by which we travel, from the food we eat to the apparels we wear, from healthcare to education systems. It’s quite mid-boggling to even imagine how we live our lives now as opposed … Continue reading “How Quantum Computing can Revolutionize Technology”
Introduction to Apache NiFi
This week in ZoneCast . . . And we are back after a bit of a long break! To start off, A Very Happy New Year to all our listeners. If only long breaks like this come around every year… Anyway back on topic, today’s episode is going to be about Apache NiFi. Its been increasingly … Continue reading “Introduction to Apache NiFi”
Why Project Managers are always Busy and a Way to Fix It
FEELING TOO BUSY THAN BEING PRODUCTIVE? Unfortunately there comes a time in our lives that we realize that we are no longer productive as we used to be or just too busy for anything. We do so much stuff and sometimes when we call it a day, it is way past bed time and the … Continue reading “Why Project Managers are always Busy and a Way to Fix It”
Communicate with more Appealing Diagrams
In the world of software, what we do is to come up with virtual models, to deal with computing devices. While we primarily deal with computers through software, we also have to deal with different stakeholders throughout the entire life cycle to collect and agree upon different needs and expectations, starting from the software requirements, … Continue reading “Communicate with more Appealing Diagrams”
The Road to JavaScript Web Applications
This week in ZoneCast . . . The Road to JavaScript Web Applications is a 4 part series where Yohan Gomaz, a Senior Software Engineer, takes you through the different stages of building a JavaScript Web Application from scratch. (If you are interested in learning more about the evolution of JavaScript and its foray into … Continue reading “The Road to JavaScript Web Applications”
The Rise of JavaScript
The leap beyond browsers into mobile, desktop applications and more There was a time when the word JavaScript reminded developers about form validations in web pages. Things have changed since then drastically. JavaScript as a language evolved over time and now it’s used in more places than ever before. This article will explore what are … Continue reading “The Rise of JavaScript”
How Reliable is Data Science?
Will it be the death of data science? Are we relying on data too much? were some of the hard hitting questions that were pointed at the tech community at the end of the US Presidential Elections 2016. As we all know, the elections tossed out a very different result to what most people were expecting. … Continue reading “How Reliable is Data Science?”
Managing Innovation with Design Thinking: Part 3
The story behind the RFID Inventory Tracking Robot continued . . . Part III: The Need for Collaboration in Design Thinking Retail and more precisely department stores in the United States is a business under severe pressure from online pure plays like Amazon. Apart from few “Off Price” retailers, almost everyone else is facing stagnant … Continue reading “Managing Innovation with Design Thinking: Part 3”
Overcome Speech Anxiety, Fear and Speak Up
You’re in a scrum training session. It’s just starting off. The trainer is trying to get everyone to loosen up, so he’s asking a few easy questions. The first one, ‘What is agile?’ You don’t really know the answer but you think ‘it’s cool, he’ll just wait for a couple seconds and then answer his own question’. … Continue reading “Overcome Speech Anxiety, Fear and Speak Up”
Automation to Drive Development Productivity
The sudden ring of an alarm clock awakens me. It is the dawn of a new day, where I hurry off to get ready for work. How often in our lives do we encounter this? If it wasn’t for the alarm clock, all that was planned for the coming day would have been at stake, wouldn’t … Continue reading “Automation to Drive Development Productivity”
Managing Innovation with Design Thinking
The story behind the Autonomous RFID Inventory Tracking Robot . . . Part I: Inspiration for Design Thinking first came across “The Art of Innovation” by Tom Kelley in 2008 and immediately fell in love with it. That was a time I was feeling the desire to experiment within the limited opportunities I was presented … Continue reading “Managing Innovation with Design Thinking”
At the Gates of UI and UX Design
This week in ZoneCast We are scratching the surface of User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design. Our hosts Umaya and Lasitha are joined by Michael and Dhammika, who are Lead UI Engineers at Zone24x7. They start by unraveling the often most interchangeably used terms in design, UI and UX and where Customer Experience fits … Continue reading “At the Gates of UI and UX Design”
