Another day, and another discovery of an accusation of Kool-Aid drinking or book burning from an ISO 29119 proponent (or an opponent of the opposition to it; a creature in the same genus, but not always the same species). Most of the increasingly vehement complaints come from folks who have not read [ISO 29119], perhaps because they don’t want to pay for the privilege but also (and I’d guess mainly) … 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
On September 8, Stuart Reid, the convenor of the Working Group, posted a response to the Stop 29119 petition that included this paragraph: (The petitioners claim that) “The standards ‘movement’ is politicized and driven by big business to the exclusion of others. A large proportion of the members of WG26 are listed at our About WG26 page along with their employers. This list does not support the assertion in the … 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
A construct, in science, is (informally) a pattern or a means of categorizing something you’re talking about, especially when the thing you’re talking about is abstract. Constructs are really important in both qualitative and quantitative research, because they allow us to differentiate between “one of these” and “not one of these”, which is one of the first steps in measurement and analysis. If you want to describe something or count … Read more
This is a first stab at a frequently-asked questions list about the movement to stop ISO 29119. Here I speak for myself, and not for the community. If you see “we”, it refers to my perception of the community at large, but not necessarily to the whole community; your mileage may vary. There is plenty of discussion in the community; Huib Schoots is curating a collection of resources on the … Read more
The proponents of ISO Standard 29119 proudly claim that they have received and responded to “literally thousands” of comments during the process of drafting the standard. So I thought it might be interesting to examine how one component of the basic model has changed or evolved through the course of its development. Here’s a screenshot of a diagram that illustrates the test planning process, taken from a presentation given in … Read more
Formal testing is testing that must be done in a specific way, or to check specific facts. In the Rapid Software Testing methodology, we map the formality of testing on a continuum. Sometimes it’s important to do testing in a formal way, and sometimes it’s not so important. From Rapid Software Testing. See http://www.satisfice.com/rst.pdf People sometimes tell me that they must test their software using a particular formal approach—for example, … Read more
Once upon time, in a high-tech business park far, far away, there were four companies, each working on a development project. In Project Blue, the testers created a suite of 250 test cases, based on 50 use cases, before development started. These cases remained static throughout the project. Each week saw incremental improvement in the product, although things got a little stuck towards the end. Project Blue kept a table … Read more
In Rapid Software Testing, James Bach, our colleagues, and I advocate an approach that puts the skill set and the mindset of the individual tester—rather than some document or tool or test case or process modelY—at the centre of testing. We advocate an exploratory approach to testing so that we find not only the problems that people have anticipated, but also the problems they didn’t anticipate. We challenge the value … Read more