For this month’s Testing the Limits, we shoot some questions back and forth with Michael Cooper, the Senior Director of Enterprise QA for T-Mobile. Subjects include T-Mobile’s latest testing projects; the unique challenges of mobile app testing; the importance of metrics and more. Enjoy!
uTest: For readers who aren’t familiar with your body of work, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about your background before T-Mobile?
MC: I have been leading Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing teams since 1997. I started at the ground floor, as a testing intern with a small company, and I worked my way up to leading an award-winning multi-national team with several hundred team members. Prior to joining T-Mobile USA, I was the Senior Director of Quality Assurance at Fair Isaac (FICO) and held Director-level positions in Quality Assurance at Inovis and Equifax.
Through the years, I have been active in the QA and Testing communities; from 2005-2007, I served as the President of the Atlanta QA Association (AQAA). I have also had the opportunity to present at numerous conferences and lead several QA and Testing workshops.
uTest: And what’s your role today?
MC: Currently, I am responsible for all aspects of QA and Testing in the T-Mobile USA Enterprise IT organization. T-Mobile is a national provider of wireless voice, messaging, and data services with America’s largest 4G network. Reporting directly to the CIO of T-Mobile USA, I lead a team of more than 500 QA, Testing and Infrastructure professionals. Together, my team and I ensure the quality of the software, systems, devices and services, which support more than 32 million customers, 24 care centers, and 1900 retail stores. Some of the systems we test include: Web, eCommerce, Customer Care, Retail, Billing, Back Office, ERP, Supply Chain, Business Intelligence, Wholesale, Handset Application Testing, and much more.
uTest: What are your day-to-day responsibilities?
MC: Every day is different; however, my first priority is ensuring the team is consistently delivering high-quality software releases. I also focus on making sure the entire team is working well together to deliver on our Quality vision and direction by setting clear expectations, and providing them the tools and environment to be successful. We’ve created a real-time dashboard and reports, which allows my management team and me to stay on top of day-to-day and long term progress.
Each and every work day, there is a 30-minute conference call with QA and Test Environment Planning teams to review project intake, progress, and any other issues. During major releases, I personally send encouraging e-mails to the onshore and offshore teams, every day. I often serve as the Quality Advocate and Evangelist with business and technical teams, which include Project Steering Committees and GO/NO GO meetings. I am also responsible for budgeting, SOWs, approving invoices and other requests, such as, new hires, travel, and promotions. Some of my business travels have included exciting places like Seattle, Texas, and India, where my onshore and offshore teams are located.
uTest: What projects are you currently working on?
MC: T-Mobile IT delivers more than 400 projects annually, not including product launches or the daily web content and scheduled price plan changes that we test. In addition to delivering business projects, we are currently working on a significant IT Modernization program, application and platform upgrades, as well as, the migrating of two state-of-the-art data centers. This migration is a very interesting testing opportunity because we were able to test the latest technology and benefit from our test automation efforts. Our team prevented many functional, performance, high availability and connectivity issues from ever getting to production. At the same time, we are re-tooling our retail and customer care systems with a user-friendly, high-performance interface. Another recent project, which I am extremely proud of, is Wal-Mart Family Mobile powered by T-Mobile. I led the testing initiative for this project and had the opportunity of working directly with the Wal-Mart testing leadership in Bentonville, to ensure the project was a success.
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