I hear a lot from testers who discover problems late in development, and who get grief for bringing them up. On one level, the complaints are baseless, like holding an investigate journalist responsible for a corrupt government. On the other hand, there’s a way for testers to anticipate bad news and reduce the surprises. Try producing a product coverage outline and a risk list. A product coverage outline is an … Read more
On November 21, 2017, I delivered a webinar as part of the regular Technobility Webinar Series presented by my friend and colleague Peter de Jager. The webinar was called “How To Get What You Want from Testing (for Managers)”, and you can find it here. Alas, we had only a one-hour slot, and there were plenty of questions afterwards. Each of the questions I received is potentially worthy of a … Read more
In response to my recent blog post, 100% Coverage is Possible, reader Hema Khurana asked: “Also some measure is required otherwise we wouldn’t know about the depth of coverage. Any straight measures available?” I replied, “I don’t know what you mean by a ‘straight’ measure. Can you explain what you mean by that?” Hema responded: “I meant a metric some X/Y.” In all honesty, it’s sometimes hard to remain patient … Read more
This article was originally published in the February 2015 edition of Testing Trapeze, an excellent online testing magazine produced by our testing friends in New Zealand. There are small edits here from the version I submitted. Once upon a time, before I was a tester, I worked in theatre. Throughout my career, I took on many roles—but maybe not in the way you’d immediately expect. In my early days, I … Read more
There’s a flaw in the way most organizations classify the severity of a bug. Here’s an example from the Elementool Web site (as of 14 January, 2015); I’m sure you’ve seen something like it: Critical: The bug causes a failure of the complete software system, subsystem or a program within the system. High: The bug does not cause a failure, but causes the system to produce incorrect, incomplete, inconsistent results … Read more
For a long time, I’ve admired Robert (“Uncle Bob”) Martin’s persistent advocacy of craftsmanship in programming and software development. Recently on Twitter, he said . @LlewellynFalco When programmers do their jobs, testers find nothing. — Uncle Bob Martin (@unclebobmartin) December 8, 2014 One of the most important tasks in the testing role is to identify alternative interpretations of apparently clear and simple statements. Uncle Bob’s statement appears clear and simple, … Read more
Sometimes testers say to me “My development team (or the support people, or the managers) keeping saying that any bugs in the product are the testers’ fault. ‘It’s obvious that any bug in the product is the tester’s responsibility,’ they say, ‘since the tester had the product last.’ How do I answer them?” Well, you could say that the product’s problems are the responsibility of the tester because the tester … Read more
On July 23, 2002, Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus of a company called Software Productivity Research gave a presentation called “SOFTWARE QUALITY IN 2002: A SURVEY OF THE STATE OF THE ART”. In this presentation, he shows data on a slide titled “U.S. Averages for Software Quality”. (Source: http://bit.ly/1rj19Ol, accessed September 5, 2014) It is not clear what “defect potentials” means. A slide preceding this one says defect potentials are … Read more
On July 23, 2002, Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus of a company called Software Productivity Research, gave a presentation called “SOFTWARE QUALITY IN 2002: A SURVEY OF THE STATE OF THE ART”. In this presentation, he provided the sources for his data on the second slide: SPR clients from 1984 through 2002 • About 600 companies (150 clients in Fortune 500 set) • About 30 government/military groups • About 12,000 … Read more
I’m going to tell you a true story. Recently, in response to a few observations, I began to make a few changes in my diet and my habits. Perhaps you’ll be impressed. I cut down radically on my consumption of sugar. I cut down significantly on carbohydrates. (Very painful; I LOVE rice. I LOVE noodles.) I started drinking less alcohol. (See above.) I increased my intake of tea and water. … Read more