Final minutes for QA WG Telecon 2003/02/10

QA Working Group Teleconference
Monday, 18-November-2002
--
Scribe:
(DH) Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C)

Attendees:
(PC) Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems)
(KD) Karl Dubost (W3C, WG co-chair)
(PF) Peter Fawcett (RealNetworks)
(DH) Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C)
(LH) Lofton Henderson (CGMO - WG co-chair)
(SM) Sandra Martinez (NIST)
(LR) Lynne Rosenthal (NIST - IG co-chair)
(MS) Mark Skall (NIST)
(KG) Kirill Gavrylyuk (Microsoft)
(dd) Dimitris Dimitriadis (Ontologicon)

Regrets:
(AT) Andrew Thackrah (Open Group)

Summary of New Action Items: 
AI-20030210-1 Dom to update the skeletonization XSLT to the new markup
grammar and generate the skeletons for SpecGL and OpsGl -> 2003-02-12
AI-20030210-2 PC to draft the materials -> 2003-02-18


Agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0051.html
Previous Telcon Minutes:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0047.html

Minutes: 
2) LC comments and IG distribution
Issues distribution to www-qa, lofton and issue raiser as decided by
email

Karl will announce QA LC when Henri announces the publication. LH
congratulates the WG for reaching this milestone.

4) Reviews 
Dates have been moved to 2003/02/24 (2 weeks from today), so that we get
some feedback before Boston. New skeletons to be generated, Dom to take
care of that.


3) 17 February telecon reschedule
LH tries to find a reschedule date: Tuesday 18, 12:00 EST seems OK, will
try to get a reservation on Zakim

5) Boston outreach kit
PC: key message to be defined from the suggestions on the ml. LH sent a
good summary on what everybody was saying:
1. sell the case to do QA to the WG
2. what should the WG be doing
3. how should they do it?
4. Feedback from the WG: what do they want from us?

Deliverables:
* short presentation (10-15 min time slot, 6-8 slides)
* backup material
* address the different levels of experiences and commitments: if people
are already sold, #1 doesn't need much time; on the contrary, if they
are not, it'll need lots of time.
MS notes that most people at W3C are sold to QA, but it's much harder to
get a real commitment from that.
PC: the key message is hence not "QA is important", but "we know you
know QA is important, but you actually need to do it".
LH: #1 should not be about why QA is good, but how QA can actually make
you save time and money, as it has been shown in Karl's and LH's slides.
MS: the point must be about priorities: QA resources shouldn't be cut in
cases of shortage.
LH quotes a slide showing how QA reduces the cost of developping a
specification. A low effort in QA can bring a huge amount of benefits.
PC confirms this view; for instance, just writing test assertions can
bring a lots of 
MS points that writing a good TS is still costly though.
PC still thinks identifying test assertion is quite cheap.
MS agrees, at least because it helps make the specification more
testable.
PC summarizing: TS can be costly, but the cycle of development as a
whole gets cheapers; besides, low QA investment (such as identifying
test assertions) can bring big benefits.
KG notes that vendors  often duplicate work on test suites, while when
the WG do that on their usual work, the vendors benefit from the
overlap. MS and PC fully agree.
PC welcomes any other ideas.

"#2: What we want people to do" and "#3 how we want them to get there"
should be easier since we have a lots of material. Points to make:
- do it from the very beginning
DM: identify what you think will be the test assertions, the different
kind of products
PC: 2 bullets for "how':
* @@@
* practice of developing a spec, and what a QA approach is for that
(think 'testable' all the time)
DM: between 'what' and 'how', probably need to give some sense of a QA
Toolbox; part of the work on QA is a toolbox to make at least the
problem approachable, by easing problems analysis.
PC: this is what I would have in the #3. Seems there is less comments on
#2 and #3, probably because there is more materials; is that good if I
produce a draft on which you could comment?
LH: looks easier to deal with
KG: is the "how" a good time to compliment WGs that do the right thing?
PC: there is a value to that; a procedural question first: will people
take the materials with them?
DH: those should be on the Web anyway
PC: so, it's probably a good idea to list some WG with links to backup
materials
DH: try not to forget any group!
MS: can be a little tricky politically, indeed

PC: next steps -> I draft a proposal, circulate it and try to get some
email discussion before next week.
LH: will you draft something for all the bits?
PC: that's what I thought doing, but if someone wants to jump in to
help, that would be great
LH: independently about the main body you're talking about, it would be
a good idea to produce some quicktips with additional details. 2
Quicktips: one for OpsGL, one for SpecGL
PC: sound reasonnable. 
LH: will try to get a volunteer for the quicktips offline, since we're
out of time
AI-200310-2 PC to draft the materials -> 2003-02-18
Need to assign 2 AI for the quicktips (deadline will be next week's
telecon)

-- 
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
W3C/ERCIM
mailto:dom@w3.org