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Quality

Software Testing Masterclass with Michael Bolton

EuroSTAR Conferences, with the support of ISA Software Skillnet, Irish Software Innovation Network and SoftTest, were delighted to bring you a half-day software testing masterclass with Michael Bolton In this session, Michael Bolton (who has extensive experience as a tester, as a programmer, and as a project manager) explained the role of skilled software testers, and why you might not want to think of testing as “quality assurance”. He present … Read more

Why Would a User Do THAT?

If you’ve been in testing for long enough, you’ll eventually report or demonstrate a problem, and you’ll hear this: “No user would ever do that.” Translated into English, that means “No user that I’ve thought of, and that I like, would do that on purpose, or in a way that I’ve imagined.” So here are a few ideas that might help to spur imagination. The user made a simple mistake, … Read more

Exegesis Saves (Part 3) Beyond the Bromides

Over the last few blog posts, some colleagues and I have been analyzing this sentence: “In successful agile development teams, every team member takes responsibility for quality.” Now, in one sense, it’s unfair for me to pick on this sentence, because I’ve taken it out of context. It’s not unique, though; a quick search on Google reveals lots of similar sentences: “Agile teams work in a more collaborative and open … Read more

Exegesis Saves! (Part 2) Transpection with James Bach

Last evening, after a long session of collecting and organizing a large number of contributed responses to yesterday’s testing challenge, I was going over my own perspectives on the sentence “In successful agile development teams, every team member takes responsibility for quality.” James Bach appeared on Skype, and we began an impromptu transpection session. It went more or less like this: James: I saw your original challenge and a couple … Read more

Doing Development Work vs. Doing Quality Assurance

Here’s a case where a comment and question were worthy of a post of their own.  In reference to my recent post, Testers:  Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business, Selim Mia writes: Hi Michael, I have started following your blog just from past few days and I like to thank you for all of your thoughtful posts by which reflects your craftsmanship. Thank you for reading, and thank you … Read more

When Testers Are Asked For A Ship/No-Ship Opinion

In response to my post, Testers:  Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business, my colleague Adam White writes, I want ask for your experience when you’ve your first 3 points for managers: Provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions, and then let them make the decisions. Remain fully aware that they’re making business decisions, not just technical ones. Know that the product doesn’t necessarily have to … Read more

Testers: Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business

The other day on Twitter, Cory Foy tweeted a challenge: “Having a QA department is a sign of incompetency in your Development department. Discuss.” Here’s what I think: I’m a tester, and it’s time for our craft to grow up. Whatever the organizational structure of our development shops, it’s time for us testers to get out of the Quality Assurance business. In the fall of 2008, I was at the … Read more