Rethinking test strategy.

We brainstormed on a simple question. What is the most important result of a tester’s work?

Some think that the most important thing is to improve the quality of our product. Some consider it to be about metrics. Some claim that a tester builds trust in the product while others think that the tester destroys that trust.

There were so many directions we ended up while storming that we decided to simplify the problem.

People demonstrate what is important to them by the financial decision they make. Consider for example choices your friends make about food, exercise, entertainment, bars or their relationships. Where do they invest their money?

So regarding testing, we re-set our brainstorming question.

What if our testing budget was painfully tight? What if we would need to cut the expenses even further. So what would we ultimately left with?

• Would we be designing more test cases and running the old ones?
• Should we put more effort on the metrics?
• What are we going to do about the strategy documents?
• How about building automation?
• Or should we review our tools like the test management systems?

A pretty hefty slice of a tester’s daily work just got trashed in our table. But one thing remained. What do you think it was?

That’s right. Bugs remained.

Or more accurately the information about what we still need to do to make this software better. And that info mostly comes in the form of bug reports.

Bugs are the things that bug someone who matters.

What if the next time around when you make decisions about testing, you’d play with the idea of too little resources as well?

Would you make different choices?