Career to Date       Qualifications          www.CatherineHalpern.com         Skill Set        About Me

 

Project & Test Management Skills

Item Notes/Experience
   
Project Budget maintenance I have managed project testing budgets in excess of £1m including regular finance and business reporting to senior management of clients and my own organisation's directors directors
Project management Gantt charting, project monitoring, evaluation and actioning any changes required to project
Project Reporting

I have sat on several management teams where I have reported progress on testing.  On several occasions I have also had to give an honest appraisal to senior directors  whether a project has been ready to launch.

Recruitment I have conducted technical and general interviews for both junior tester and management positions to recruit for both TesCom and for oles for our clients.
Team Leadership I have successfully lead teams from 3-35 on projects for periods covering up to 7 months.
Coaching junior colleagues I have advised junior colleagues on process improvement, have identified areas of interest and career development for several colleagues who have gone to pursue these successfully.
Project  Introduction & Farming I have successfully introduced new business to my current organisation and have a proven track record of farming substantial new work from current projects
Sales & Marketing

I have attended many sales meetings as technical support and have been trained in and have used SPIN selling.  I have also represented my current and previous organisations on stands at trade fairs and exhibitions

Training and Development I have delivered seminars and training to colleagues both in the UK and overseas, both 1-to-1 and group level (30+).  Seminar titles include: Functionality testing for the Internet, Cross-configurations in Internet Testing and Browser functionality.
Test Planning and Delivery I have written a number of test strategy and planning documents for clients, as well as several white papers on potential new delivery markets and testing processes.

 

Highlights of market experience variety (please also see my Career to Date)

Item Notes/Experience
   
Business Analysis Experience analysing financial and business reports generated using COGNOS.
e-Commerce I have test managed projects where the requirement has included  the end-to-end process of order fulfilment including shipping, delivery, customer call centre and credit & fraud as well as the IT elements.
Investment Banking Test planning and rehearsal execution of a transaction management process for derivatives including ensuring the successful transfer of SWIFT messages to ISO standard 15022.
Telecommunications I have managed the testing of a multi-million pound launch across internet & WAP for an international telecommunications company for the UK and France
Gaming Industry Part of a 25+ member team delivering a number of testing solutions on internet, mobile phone and IDTV for a large UK gaming corporation.
Construction As a surveyor I  project managed several small works of up to £60k were I was responsible for all aspects of the successful delivery of the project.

 

Testing Tools

Item Notes/Experience
   
Rational Test Suite (Robot & Manager) Record, playback and debug of scripts
Mercury Test Director Involved in design and implementation of test repositories and extensive front-end use
Mercury WinRunner Able to record, playback & debug basic scripts
PVCS Defect Tracker Extensive front-end use
Segue Silk Performer Attended official training course - certificate available
Linkbot Extensive testing of 500+ page sites and able analyse and action on error reports generated

 

Development Environments/Languages

Item Notes/Experience
   
HTML Able to line program from scratch as well as adapt existing code
Javascript Ability to debug existing code
Java Overall understanding of the language concepts and ability to analyse and action on insertion of applets and code
Visual Basic Overall understanding of the language concepts and have written some beginner level programs
Powerbuilder / Infomaker Report work development using Infomaker and testing of a client server application built using Powerbuilder

 

Back Office Systems

Item Notes/Experience
   
MS NT 4.0 Server Administration Certificate of attendance available on request
MS NT 4.0 Workstation Administration Certificate of attendance available on request
MS Microsoft Exchange 5.5 Administration Certificate of attendance available on request
MS TCP/IP Certificate of attendance available on request

 

Front End Applications (selected)

Item Notes/Experience
   
MS Word 2002 (and previous versions) Highly competent
MS Excel 2002 (and previous versions) Highly competent
MS Access 2002 (and previous versions) Design and implementation of several databases including one for test defect tracking
MS PowerPoint 2002 (and previous versions) Highly competent
MS Publisher 2002 (and previous versions) Highly competent
MS Visio 2002 (and previous versions)

Many diagrams created for both work and study use.  Many examples available on my www.groovycathers.com site in the study section.

MS FrontPage 2002(and previous versions) Used in the development of this and my other website
MindManager 2002 (and previous versions) Used in work and study. Many examples available on my www.groovycathers.com site in the study section.
Adobe Photoshop Competent
AutoCAD Competent on v14 and previous versions and LT

 

Non-IT Languages

Item Notes/Experience
   
English Fluent - Native Language
French Intermediate Level  (+ have experience working in France)
Spanish Beginners' level - basic conversational