Google testing blog comment...

I recently read a post on the Google Testing blog titled: How Google Tests Software - Part Three. I added a comment to the post, but that comment has yet to appear. I thought I'd add post my comment here in the mean time. (I've added some links here, for the curious)

“I agree that 'quality' can not be 'tested in'. But the approach you describe appears to go-ahead and attempt to do something just, if not more, difficult. You suggest that a programmer will produce quality work by just coding 'better'. While a skilled and experienced programmer is capable of producing high quality software, who will tell them when they don't or can't? We are all potentially victims of the Dunning–Kruger effect, and as such we need co-workers to help.

There are a host of biases that stop a programmer, product owner or project manager from questioning their work. The confirmation and congruence bias to name just two. These are magnified by group-think, and without the input of a more independent, experienced and skilled critical thinker, soon allow mistakes to occur.

Think of it this way, how do you know your products are good enough? how do you know they are not plagued by flaws? Flaws like: a message that tells me my payment method is invalid - before I've entered one or the absence of a scale on the iPhone maps app.”

Comments

The gamification of Software Testing

A while back, I sat in on a planning meeting. Many planning meetings slide awkwardly into a sort of ad-hoc technical analysis discussion, and this was no exception. With a little prompting, the team started to draw up what they wanted to build on a whiteboard.

The picture spoke its thousand words, and I could feel that the team now understood what needed to be done. The right questions were being asked, and initial development guesstimates were approaching common sense levels.

The discussion came around to testing, skipping over how they might test the feature, the team focused immediately on how long testing would take.

When probed as to how the testing would be performed? How we might find out what the team did wrong? Confused faces stared back at me. During our ensuing chat, I realised that they had been using BDD scenarios [only] as a metric of what testing needs to be done and when they are ready to ship. (Now I knew why I was hired to help)

There is nothing wrong with checking t…

A h̶i̶t̶c̶h̶h̶i̶k̶e̶r̶'s̶ software tester's guide to randomised testing - Part 1

Mostly Harmless, I've talked and written about randomisation as a technique in software testing several times over the last few years. It's great to see people's eyes light up when they grok the concept and its potential.
The idea that they can create random test data on the fly and pour this into the app step back and see what happens is exciting to people looking to find new blockers on their apps path to reliability.
But it's not long before a cloud appears in their sunny demeanour and they start to conceive of the possible pitfalls. Here are a few tips on how to avert the common apparent blockers. (Part 1) Problem: I've created loads of random numbers as input data, but how will I know the answer the software returns, is correct? - Do I have to re-implement the whole app logic in my test code?
Do you remember going to the fun-fair as a kid? Or maybe you recall taking your kids now as an adult? If so then you no doubt are familiar with the height restriction -…

Betting in Testing

“I’ve completed my testing of this feature, and I think it's ready to ship”
“Are you willing to bet on that?”
No, Don't worry, I’m not going to list various ways you could test the feature better or things you might have forgotten.
Instead, I recommend you to ask yourself that question next time you believe you are finished.
Why? It might cause you to analyse your belief more critically. We arrive at a decision usually by means of a mixture of emotion, convention and reason. Considering the question of whether the feature and the app are good enough as a bet is likely to make you use a more evidence-based approach.

Why do I think I am done here? Would I bet money/reputation on it? I have a checklist stuck to one of my screens, that I read and contemplate when I get to this point. When you have considered the options, you may decide to check some more things or ship the app. Either could be the right decision.
Then the app fails…
The next day you log on and find that the feature is b…

investigating software

Search This Blog