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 |