Core Team

Neil Hudson CEng MBCS

Neil Hudson is the principal consultant at SQC. He is a highly experienced IT / software manager and lead with a comprehensive technical knowledge and a world class understanding of IT systems assurance, risk management and testing. He has worked in the IT industry since 1985 and during this time has successfully undertaken a diverse range of roles spanning from development and test through requirements capture and design to delivery and test management. He is a self-motivated innovator and leader able to take on and deliver very demanding assignments.

Throughout his career he has worked in roles where successful outcomes have been essential to the aims of the sponsors. He has led and delivered numerous complex assignments within a diverse range of organisations. He has worked extensively in senior test architect and test management roles and in enabling others to deliver such roles. His wider experience includes periods in software development, system definition and design, leadership of development teams and in programme management. He has managed major organisations employing hundreds of people and led small teams focussing on particular technical missions. His broad experience has developed robust technical and managerial skills and capabilities that permit him to deliver successfully in very challenging circumstances.

He has implemented advanced software solutions and led development of such solutions. He has worked in roles across the complete programme life-cycle from system concepts through requirements and design into development integration and test. He has delivered and managed assurance and testing of very sophisticated high intensity critical IT projects. This history has developed knowledge, aptitudes and competencies that span both testing and development disciplines.

Recent challenges have seen these skills applied inside BT as he has spent much of the last three years as acting Head of Test for the BT Retail IT estate. During this period supporting BT he defined, created, developed and led the unit responsible for protecting and testing BT Retail IT solutions. Development of the unit involved selection of the management team, formulation of operating policies and principles, establishing an effective operation, integration into the wider organisation and ensuring recognition of the unit’s remit and ethos. As Head of Test he held responsibility for the overall integrity of testing along the delivery chain, responsibility for the end-to-end test service and was ultimately responsible for the protection of the IT estate holding final IT organisation sign-out accountability.

He has developed and established approaches and capabilities that provide highly effective services for test management, test delivery, test automation and non-functional testing. Delivery of automation has covered the implementation of sophisticated effective test automation solutions for clients and helping clients and their suppliers to develop and improve their own use of test automation. Solutions have been delivered for enterprise CRM and billing systems, communications systems and for real-time control systems. Sophisticated performance and scalability assurance testing assignments have included complex highly scalable rich internet solutions, booking systems, high profile public institution search engines and web-sites for government services. Testing and assurance deliveries have encompassed real-time embedded systems, small scale applications, large scale web solutions and critical elements on enterprise level systems.

As principal consultant it is Neil’s ability to rapidly assess and comprehend uncertain situations, to identify strategies in the face of this uncertainty and to plan and then lead the execution of the solution, overcoming the inevitable obstacles along the way, that enables SQC to accept and successfully deliver these novel complex challenging assignments.

He is a Chartered Engineer. His professional qualifications include:

• Open University / SERC Project Management Certificate ( Distinction )
• University of York Diploma in Safety Critical Systems Engineering
• BCS ISEB Certificate in Software Testing

His areas of expertise include system and software testing, threat and hazard analysis and organisation & management of development. He has specialised in software testing, software quality management, and software project management since 1989. He has wide experience of software test automation in a variety of problem domains using tools such as Robot, WinRunner, QTP and LoadRunner. Specific product certifications held include:

• Mercury Interactive LoadRunner Certified Product Consultant (CPC)
• Mercury Interactive WinRunner Certified Product Consultant (CPC)

A version of this profile in PDF format is available N Hudson Profile; a full Curriculum Vitae with further details is also available in PDF format: N Hudson CV.

Sarah Clark

Senior test analyst, performance tester and test automation lead with a successful track record across a broad spectrum of systems and IT solutions. Experience has ranged from testing realtime embedded devices across high profile public web-sites to very large scale enterprise CRM systems and telecoms operational support system.

Principal automation lead with experience of a range of test automation tools. Implemented multiple diverse test automation solutions using both commerical tools and custom developments in Java and C/C++. Experience of automated testing of systems via web-service interface. Led the implementation of end-to-end test automation on BT Retail's Siebel based strategic OSS. Carried out both local implementation and management of implementation by outsourced teams. Extensive experience of framework based test automation solutions. Advanced use of tools including WinRunner, QTP and Robot.

Non-functional test practioner with in-depth knowledge of performance / load testing, reliability testing and system / data integrity assurance. Delivered performance / load testing assignments including testing of large scale closed internet applications, goverment self-service portals and high profile public institution search faciliies. Developed and implemented practices and automation for specialist test areas including reliability testing and system / data integrity testing. Highly experienced user of LoadRunner and QALoad.

Specialist in the analysis of test requirements, the definition and specification of test suites and the implementation of testware to execute the tests. Experience includes enterprise level system testing, sub-system testing and component testing. Testing of software hosted on standard operating systems and embedded real-time software. Experience of leading specialist test initiatives focusing on problematic threats such as recovery from internal failures, internal data integrity, maintaining data quality and user interface usability and robustness. Practiced at identifing and categorising real-world demand scenarios as a basis for design evaluation and test derivation.

Broad experience across the diverse dimension of solution types, technologies, business domains and threat / test types have devloped the base disciplines, adapability and flexible approach required to undertake senior test analyst and leadership roles in complex demanding systems / IT solution programmes. Application experience includes CRM systems, billing systems embedded software, accounting systems, business management systems and local government administration applications.

Holds the following professional qualifications and product certifications:

• BCS ISEB Certificate in Software Testing
• Mercury Interactive WinRunner Certified Product Consultant (CPC)

Sarah originally trained as a management accountant and gained extensive experience in commercial accounting before moving into software testing in 1998.

A version of this profile in PDF format is available S Clark Profile