New Monthly Subscription Pricing for e-Learning Courses

News Release

Oklahoma City, OK  73170

April 25, 2017

We are excited to announce a new way for software testers and business analysts to get the training you need to grow your career, with an affordable monthly membership that gives you maximum flexibility and choice in the topics you can explore.

Plus, you will become part of an active online community of other people who are also learning and growing in their careers. 

Now, we offer three ways to gain access to excellent e-Learning courses designed to help you expand your career in new areas:

Monthly membership (individual) - $49.99 USD/month gives you access to over 19 e-Learning courses that cover topics such as Basic Training in Software Testing, SOA Testing, Cloud Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Test Automation and many others, with new courses scheduled to be added to the catalog monthly. You can cancel your membership at any time.

Certification track membership (individual) - $69.99 USD/month gives you access to all the regular monthly membership courses, PLUS our popular ISTQB Foundation Level Course in Software Testing, ASTQB Mobile Tester Certification, and IQBBA Foundation Certification for Business Analysts. (The ISTQB Agile Foundation will be included in the near future.) Exams are not included and a 3-month minimum membership is required. Advanced certification courses are not included.

Fixed-price courses (individual) – This is our current pricing plan for all courses and includes lifetime access to the materials. You pay one price for one course. All of our e-learning courses will still be available as fixed-price courses. The only way we are offering ISTQB Advanced Certification courses is with fixed pricing. In the fixed price plan, exams are included for most courses with the exception of the ISTQB Advanced Security Tester certification.  This plan may be the most workable for people who are getting reimbursed by their employer for the training.

Here is the explainer video: https://youtu.be/X6pvEIkN7JY

All pricing plans can be quoted for teams and enterprises upon request.

As a member at any of the three levels, you have e-mail access to Randy to ask questions about the content of the course(s) you are taking. In addition, you will get member-only access to special webinars and early access to new course material and other content that Randy is creating.

These e-Learning courses are not just a collection of videos. Rather, they are complete course experiences with the same course notes you would see in a live classroom setting (the notes are shown in a PDF viewer that allows them to be printed), along with quizzes and exercises. The exercises are optional, but do reinforce the concepts in the course.

All of the courses are presented by Randall (Randy) Rice, a well-known author, consultant and trainer in the field of software testing, quality assurance and business analysis. Randy holds all ISTQB Foundation and Advanced Core Certifications, as well as the ISTQB Advanced Security Tester Certification. He has over 39 years of software development and testing experience, with the past 29 years specializing in software testing consulting and training. Randy is on the board of the American Software Testing Qualifications Board (ASTQB).

Upon the completion of a course and the submission of the course evaluation, you will receive a certificate in PDF format.

To learn more and to enroll, just visit https://www.mysoftwaretesting.com

For questions and custom price quotes, please contact Randy Rice at 405-691-8075 or from the "Contact Us" link at http://www.riceconsulting.com.

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My Experience at the Quest 2017 Conference

I was honored to be asked to present a half-day tutorial and track session at QAI's Quest 2017 Conference last week in Chicago. 

I have spoken at testing conferences since 1989, with only two years since then that I have sat out a year. So, I've been to a lot of these rodeos worldwide. In fact, I chaired the QAI International Software Testing Conference (1995 - 2000), so I know what it takes to keep everything on track.

It's from that background that I write this. My intent is not to take away from any other conference. I also have conferences on the schedule yet for this year. 

By the way, this blog post was not solicited. I just feel that when someone does a great job, recognition is deserved. 

I was blown away by this conference for several reasons:

Outstanding management - Tom Ticknor, Nancy Kastl, Anna Zucker and the rest of the team did a great job of making sure everything ran like clockwork. The weather turned rather bad on Wednesday (40F, 40 - 50 mph winds and rain), so the planned dinner cruise was still held on the boat, but it was enclosed and we never left the dock. It was also very challenging to get a few hundred people on busses and over to Navy Pier, but we all made it and a good time was had by all!

Outstanding volunteers - All the track hosts and other volunteers did a great job. In my experience, you can't pull off a great conference without great volunteers to make sure all the little things are handled. Thanks much to Kenneth Brown, who was my track host for both sessions. You rock!

A strong sense of community - I felt like I was among friends - and I was. In fact, in some cases, it was like old home week to see friends from the past QAI and CQAA events. I was able to strike up conversations with everyone I met. This was not a huge conference in terms of attendance, but for me it was just the right size - not too big, not too small.

Wide representation - This was not just a local Chicago event. There were people from much of the USA there, as well as from about a dozen other countries.

Great sessions - From the keynotes to the track sessions, I did not experience a bad session. Good content plus good speaking ability equals a great session. Also, the selection of topics was wide enough to cover just about anyone's topics of interest. 

Solid content - Speaking of content, one of the things that concerns me about the current state of testing is that we are taking our eyes off the main thing - testing and quality. Most testers think QA and testing are the same thing (they aren't). One thing that was striking to me was that in every session I attended, the concepts were solid, with very practical ways to apply the ideas. 

Awesome food - I can't say I ever had filet mignon for lunch at a conference before, but I did last week. I don't fly for the dining experience, and I don't expect a lot from conference fare, but really - bacon and eggs for breakfast every day? That's good stuff. Plus, the dinner cruise food was very good. Kudos to the Renaissance hotel for the preparation and for the Quest team for the menu selections.

Informative expo - The reality is most vendors go to the larger conferences because that is where the numbers are. But, how many of those people are the decision makers? I spoke with most of the vendors in the expo and found that they all had great offerings. I expect there were a fair number of decision-makers at the conference.

The negatives? I can't think of any.

I highly recommend this conference to anyone looking for any of the above things. If you are in the software testing or software quality field and live in the mid-west, attending the Quest Conference is a no-brainer. I hope to attend again in the future!

Rice Consulting's IQBBA BA Certification Course is Accredited by the ASTQB

Press Release

Rice Consulting Announces Accreditation of New IQBBA Business Analyst Certification Training Course

Learn how to improve the quality of IT projects by understanding and documenting user needs in clear and understandable ways.

Oklahoma City, OK, April 14, 2017:  Randall Rice, internationally-recognized author, consultant and trainer in software testing and business analysis is excited to announce the accreditation of his newest course, IQBBA Foundation Level Certification Course by the American Software Testing Qualifications Board (ASTQB).

This is a course designed for business analysts and others who are looking for effective ways to gather and document user needs for projects in their organization. This course teaches people best practices in how to deliver projects that meets user needs and expectations.

The course is based on the Certified Foundation Level Business Analyst (CFLBA) Syllabus from the International Qualification Board for Business Analysts (IQBBA). Accreditation verifies that the course content covers the certification syllabus and glossary. In addition, the reviewers ensure that the course covers the materials at the levels indicated in the syllabus.

“Regardless of the project methodology in place, unless the user need is fully understood and articulated, a complete and correct solution cannot be delivered. Failure to capture the user needs is one key reason that around 30% of projects never reach successful implementation,” explained Randall Rice. 

ASTQB president, Debbie Friedenberg, says, "We believe that the IQBBA's internationally-recognized Business Analyst certification is of great importance to the profession, especially as we see the Business Analysis continuing to gain importance in the coming years."

This course is currently available on an on-site basis and in online e-Learning format. For further details, visit http://www.riceconsulting.com. 

To schedule a course to be presented in your company, contact Randall Rice at 405-691-8075 or by e-mail. 

Randall W. Rice, author and trainer of the course is a Certified Tester, Advanced Level and is on the Board of Directors of the ASTQB. He is the co-author with William E. Perry of two books, “Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing” and “Testing Dirty Systems.”