October 15, 2010

Why software testing should be like good journalism?

Don't you just love news? News is an important part of our lives. It keeps us informed about the happenings in the world around us. Further, news helps us update our mental model of the world so that our understanding matures from that time onwards. Now, news are gathered and communicated to us by journalists. Let us see what can we apply from the world of journalism to software testing?
Similarities between journalists and software testers
A journalist has a network of sources to inform her of interesting events.A tester has a bunch of tests to inform her of interesting facts about the system under test.
In order to stay on top of events, the journalist stays in constant touch with her contacts.In order to stay updated about the current quality of the system, a tester executes her tests regularly.
The journalist seeks to strengthen her network by adding new contacts or replacing her contacts with better ones.The tester seeks to strengthen her test suite by adding new tests or enhancing her existing tests.
As soon as the journalist comes to know about an interesting event, she starts working to gather all possible information on it.As soon as the tester comes to know about an interesting bug, she starts working to gather all information about it and isolate it.
A busy journalist has more than one story to work upon at a time. She follows all of them as they develop but focuses her attention on the ones most critical to her readers/ viewers.A busy tester has more than one bug to work upon at a time. She follows each of her bugs but focuses her attention on the ones most critical to the system's stakeholders.
A journalist does not work alone but seeks help from others to create the best possible news story.A tester also relies on her team to provide her insights into areas requiring more testing, re-usable tests and better testing techniques.
Now let us see what we can learn from not-so-good news stories.
A late new story: Nobody likes stale news. Stale news makes us miss opportunities and disappoints us.Our tests should be freshly executed. Our bug reports should be promptly reported giving timely information to our stakeholders to understand, digest and decide actions based on our bug reports.
A poorly labeled news story: We decide to read/ view a news story based on its headline. It wastes time if the headline is not a true representation of the news story and we stop reading/ viewing the news mid-way.Each of our bug reports should contain a true summary of the bug. This would enable our stakeholder effectively decide whether they want to read it it or not.
An incomplete news story: We don't feel good when we have a number of open questions after reading/ viewing a news story. It requires additional effort on our part to seek missing information from elsewhere or follow the story further.Our bug reports should contain each required information item e.g. the steps to reproduce the problem, the actual result, the expected result, the test data used and the test environment in which the bug was discovered.
A repetitious news story: We don't want to waste our time on reading/ viewing details that we already know about.Each of our bug reports should contain unique information and not duplicate information that is already known via other bug reports.
I am confident that the next time you read or watch news, you would think about the things that you could apply or avoid in your own software testing. Let me know if you find other lessons for us to learn from good journalism.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.