Category: Software development
Testing does not prevent defects
May 24, 2016
There seems to be a bunch of discussion regarding whether testers prevent defects or not. The main source of confusion that I see is confusing ‘testers’ with ‘testing’. Clearing this up seems pretty simple. Testing does not prevent defects. Testers may. I do. But I don’t call that part of my work ‘testing’, even if […]
Presstimates
January 6, 2010
Presstimate: The number you give to get a manager off your back when you’re being hassled to give an estimate; Your best guess of what estimate of effort management will accept, not how long the work will actually take.
More agile and software-development Haiku
July 3, 2009
Time has passed, and I thought it was time to update my thoughts on what’s critical to successful software testing (and development). While originally, I started noting important ideas for agile teams, Increasingly, I find most of these apply no matter what environment I’m working in. Check them out on my Haiku page.
My diabolical problem becomes simply a wicked one
October 28, 2008
I spent ages recently googling for references to ‘Diabolical Problems’, about which I thought I had read. Thanks to Matt Heusser’s latest post, I now know I should have instead been googling for Wicked Problems. Just in case I’ve sent anyone off on the same wild goose chase, this post should set them straight. For […]
Requirements and specifications: What's the difference and what's it to you?
September 16, 2008
There have been a number of threads I have followed in a few different forums recently where people have discussed requirements, what it means for requirements to be ‘good’, and what it might mean for requirements to be unambiguous. What usually follows is a long-winded back and forth, with no resolution. At the heart of […]
Test for Project Risk
August 19, 2008
An excellent quote from our development lead, James Ladd: How to test a project might be risky – – It has people in it. Thanks to James Bach for inspring this!
Answering a question…
July 15, 2008
A few weeks ago, Designer commented on Software testing, art and productivity. The question got lost in amongst the comment spam, so I thought I’d give my answer a bit more prominently than usual. The question was: …Many people who want to get a web-developed project don’t even understand the details of work. They just […]
INVESTing in User Stories, revisited
July 14, 2008
Mike Cohn’s “User Stories Applied” discusses using the INVEST mnemonic as a guide to writing better user stories. I was recently asked to dig up a reference for it, and found this presentation here, with the section on the mnemonic on pages 47 and 48. As I read it, I noticed that there’s been a […]
Things to look out for in your agile (or Agile) adoption
February 13, 2008
Jonathan Kohl pointed me at a position paper from Brian Marick for the Agile Coach Camp. If you’re in the middle of adopting agile, it’s well worth a read. You can find it here: http://wiki.agilecoachcamp.org/tiki-index.php?page=BrianMarickPositionPaper
Planning to make use of learning – Incremental vs Iterative
January 25, 2008
During coffee with Agile-coach and all-round excellent guy Shane Clauson, in sympathy with yet another of my what’s-wrong-with-agile rants, he pointed me to this blog post from Jeff Patton: Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it While my opinions diverge on some of what he says must be true, I […]