The most important thing is to like what you do. And I do!

Valérie Joubert

Technical Director, France

I arrived at Sogeti two years ago. It was a new adventure for me after my previous job in a big, global company, where the objectives were mainly financial. I was looking for a different way of working, a ‘human adventure’. I spent one month traveling the country and met all kinds of Sogeti employees, as I wanted to find out about their attitude towards their work. I met many interesting people, who were quality conscious, with a good spirit and a professional approach. That confirmed to me that I made the right choice.

My training was in Testing and the test offerings, and was made up of three components. First was the TMap framework – the technology, methodology, risk analysis, strategy and techniques. Second was TPI – Test Process Improvement, and the third element was test-leadership, selling TMap to clients.

Testing has become my professional life now. I think it’s a fascinating business that delivers real value to all types of clients.

Particularly now with the launch of TMap Next, we have a formalized, structural methodology in place, that offers return on investment, low costs, improved quality and a greater number of tests.

The Testing situation today is that a large number of businesses are equipped with test tools, which they believe are sufficient. But when there’s no underlying test strategy, these tools tend to be under-used. Basically, that is a problem caused by the fact that testing activities are considered to be a cost, rather than an investment. The solution is to look at testing as a full-bodied business project and to align it with governance requirements.

Test departments can, and have to, become profit centers. In order to value the contribution of testing, companies have to first of all determine precisely the quality level that they need, and test phases have to be prepared at a much earlier stage than they are now. If that’s not the case, if testing continues to be viewed as just another stage in the process with minimal added value, then this will lead to further problems. In particular, the shortcomings of the testing process – such as lack of documentation, lack of information about changes made and the difficulty of tracking changes – will become ever more evident.

We put the TMap Next methodology into practice in early 2007; it anticipates various problems that can occur during and after the test phase. This new version of TMap focuses on the business objectives of the client and takes into account the various levels of risk or damage that could result from insufficient or ineffective testing. It also provides direction for structuring the organization and test processes. In fact, you need to ask the right questions first of all and then you can come up with the right answers. Before embarking on a test program, you have to ask some questions: Can you define the targets? What are the parameters of testing? How long will it take to roll out the project?

At Sogeti, we have a very strong testing community, with centers of excellence in the Netherlands, Sweden and India to rely on.

In France, we have 300 testing experts and we can also call upon the skills of our other consultants. Whatever the line of business, we strive to measure the productivity of our testing work.

My job is to coach, train and improve the competencies of not just our people, but also of our clients. My mission is to make Sogeti even more successful, make people perform more effectively and trust their competencies. The most important thing is that people like what they do, have fun in their work, and of course work together. That’s also what I call the ‘Sogeti way’.