Quality Engineering in Microsoft Office

Jeffrey MurrayTest Manager PowerPoint,

Microsoft Silicon Valley

Microsoft Silicon Valley • Over 1600 employees, plus 400 vendors/contractors. Approx 450

employees in San Francisco.

• Teams on campus:– Microsoft Research– Windows Live Operations– Live Search Labs – MSTV/IPTV/Mediaroom – Tellme– MSN Mobile– MSN Video– Xbox Hardware– Hotmail– MacBU– PowerPoint

Goals for today

• Learn about the Office product cycle

• Career Tips

• Fun Stories

About Me

What Challenges face Office?

Office Challenges

Basic Project Management Variables

• Time– How much time do we have?

• Resources– Who are they and how many?

• Scope– What are you going to do and how risky is it?

The Cast

Scope – What Features?

• Feature team makes the decisions– Must align with Office “Pillars”– Must fit into allowed development time– Must be fully resourced

• Management will approve features via – Adds/Cuts– Product priorities and opportunities– Manage risk

Office Schedule is fixed to 28-32 Months

Overlapping for Efficiency

Milestone 1

Milestone 2

Quality Engineering 1990-1993

Testing grows up ~1993-2000

Pushing Quality Further Upstream 2000+

• Testers involved in spec and design phase• Feature not “checked in” till beta quality• More formal review of test/dev collateral• Code reviews earlier in product cycle• Advancement in dev tools and auto

validation programs

When are you ready to ship?

• Your set of risky features need to be under control• Statistics and trends are all doing the right thing• Checklists• Bug Charts• Dogfood• Watson• Beta feedback• “Show Stopper”• Triage committee

AutomationPerformanceAccessibilityInternationalLocalizationPlanned testingStressUser ScenariosBackward compatibilityConfigurationInteroperabilityPolitical sensitivityUA approvalVisual FreezeProgrammabilityPrintingSetup and UpgradeCode OptimizationLogo

Typical Office Product Bug Trend

Watson

1. We don’t have user steps or data

2. We know what line of code caused the crash and can often guard against it

Career Tips

• Companies are better at identifying talent within you than you are at picking the best company. Make sure you don’t hold back at an interview.

• Don’t plan your whole career all at once, you will miss out on interesting opportunities

• Use that open door• You are a professional, act like it• When you screw up (and you will) what you do next is critical• Ask yourself each week, what do I like about my job?• Interview the company beyond the job, a good part of your life

will be there.

Stories

• How I got my Job at Microsoft• Copy protection• Steve’s laptop• OneNote• Office pranks

– Elevator– Beach– Peanuts– Disco

www.microsoft.com/college

www.viewmyworld.com