Test Executives - part 1

For many years now I been a little obsessed with the subject of test executives.  I'll explain why in a minute, but first let me try to define what I think of as a test executive.

Wikipedia has a specific description of test executives, but my definition is more specific to my experiences.

So why do I want to write about this topic?  Ten years ago I was working for a small division of a Fortune 500 company.  We had just bought a complicated test/manufacturing tool developed by a consulting firm.  This firm had written a script driver that they used for most of their hardware projects.

That was an epiphany moment.  I had written a script driver for a specific test instrument when I worked at HP back in the late 90s, but I'd never really thought about writing one that I could reuse across projects.  Nor had I considered buying one off the shelf.  In the ten years since that moment I've worked at four other companies that developed four separate solutions.  So over the next couple posts I will write about different test executives - commercial as well as "roll-your-own" - and compare and contrast my experiences with each.