Experience with Training a Remotely Located Performance Test Team in a Quasi-agile Global Environment

Abstract

We describe our experience of training a remotely located team of developers and testers to prepare and execute performance tests. The team is located in India. The lead performance engineer and the test project manager are based in New Jersey. The team members had little or no prior experience of performance testing. We describe how we overcame cultural differences and a large time difference to develop a performance testing team that is now functioning well with far less supervision than was required at its inception. Cultural differences included contrasting views on adherence to strict laboratory procedures and assumptions about the prior knowledge, experience, and expectations of working habits of the India-based and New Jersey-based teams. We show how these differences and organizational challenges were overcome with intensive on-site training, the use of twice-daily scrum meetings, the careful designation of team leaders and role players at the remote testing site, and, eventually, the development intensive use of automated tools to execute performance tests and track the results.