Skip to main content

A Good Run!


“We got a good run from the tests” the tester stated.
“So what’s the story?” the scrum master asked.
“85% Pass” comes the reply, meekly.
“OK, just need to fix that 5% then.” The scrum master announces before striding off to announce that the team is only a couple of % away from success.

Our tester takes a moment to try and process the exchange…


Firstly, their own words:
“We got a good run”
Why had they said that? Well - in a sense - it was true. They had executed the tests before, and they had returned a much higher failure rate. But the code being checked was the same...

OK, so there were at least 3 obvious ways to interpret the data.
  1. The app code meets the criteria checked by the tests. ( Based on test run 2 )
  2. The app code does not meet the criteria checked by the tests. ( Based on test run 1 )
  3. The tests are as reliable a the toss of the coin. ( Based on both test runs )

Its surprising how unlikely people are to choose (3).


Secondly, the scrum master’s words:
“just need to fix that 5%”
Our tester assumes this relates to the de-facto “threshold” that is usually considered as good enough to release. As if the results were a linear scale, such as height or weight. If your code gets over 90% then it gets to pass the gate and get on the release roller-coaster.

The threshold tends to be arbitrary, I worked with a client that thought 86% was good but 83% was just not fit for purpose! Their use tends to indicate a problem. Why are we caring about a number rather than a possibly broken feature? What features or risks do the failing 10% represent? Why do we have so many routine failures?

Do you hear these sort of conversations in your team? If so, then your team might need some coaching.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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. Testing is gambling with your time to find information about the app. 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

Test Engineers, counsel for... all of the above!

Sometimes people discuss test engineers and QA as if they were a sort of police force, patrolling the streets of code looking for offences and offenders. While I can see the parallels, the investigation, checking the veracity of claims and a belief that we are making things safer. The simile soon falls down. But testers are not on the other side of the problem, we work alongside core developers, we often write code and follow all the same procedures (pull requests, planning, requirements analysis etc) they do. We also have the same goals, the delivery of working software that fulfills the team’s/company's goals and avoids harm. "A few good men" a great courtroom drama, all about finding the truth. Software quality, whatever that means for you and your company is helped by Test Engineers. Test Engineers approach the problem from another vantage point. We are the lawyers (& their investigators) in the court-room, sifting the evidence, questioning the facts and viewing t

XSS and Open Redirect on Telegraph.co.uk Authentication pages

I recently found a couple of security issues with the Telegraph.co.uk website. The site contained an Open redirect as well as an XSS vulnerability. These issues were in the authentication section of the website, https://auth.telegraph.co.uk/ . The flaws could provide an easy means to phish customer details and passwords from unsuspecting users. I informed the telegraph's technical management, as part of a responsible disclosure process. The telegraph management forwarded the issue report and thanked me the same day. (12th May 2014) The fix went live between the 11th and 14th of July, 2 months after the issue was reported. The details: The code served via auth.telegraph.co.uk appeared to have 2 vulnerabilities, an open redirect and a reflected Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability. Both types of vulnerabilty are in the OWASP Top 10 and can be used to manipulate and phish users of a website. As well has potentially hijack a user's session. Compromised URLs, that exp