Mar
23
Written by:
Danny R. Faught
Monday, March 23, 2009 5:01 PM
I'm excited to be invited as a guest blogger on StickyMinds.com. The "Software Alchemy" title matches the "Software Alchemist" title I use on my business card, and it often elicits comments when I hand it out. I think that the state of software development hasn't progressed beyond alchemy yet. Developers don't know how to write software that's likely to work on the first try, and I certainly don't either. So we test it, and testing is still a wild frontier too. I joke that my clients tend to produce lead, and call me in after the fact, asking me to help turn it into the gold that they intended to make in the first place.
Does that sound pessimistic? I don't intend it that way. I think this is an exciting time in the history of computers. We've made much progress since the dawn of computers, and we get to be involved in the continued progress that is still needed in the craft of software development.
Should we as testers hold our ground on quality principles, or focus on providing the best information to our stakeholders that we can even when the project isn't following the rules and we don't have the resources we want? If you don't know my answer yet, you will before long.
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2 comment(s) so far...
Re: The Software Alchemy blog is born
I look forward to future blogs. I look forward to your answer but I believe as test and quality professionals we have to strike a balance between ideologue and pragmatist. I don't feel this is an all-or-nothing proposition. No matter how the project is being managed we owe it to the stakeholders to provide the best quality analysis possible while at the same time championing process improvement.
So am I taking the easy way out by not answering the question?
By Rick Martin on
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 9:01 AM
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Re: The Software Alchemy blog is born
I agree that it's not an all-or-nothing proposition, it's really about our philosophy. It's usually good to pay attention to things that could be improved, but I don't assume that any stakeholder wants me to put significant effort into implementing improvements unless they tell me so. I can put a suggestion on the table, and they can tell me whether they want me to put any energy into it.
This is usually complicated by the fact that the changes would impact people and processes I don't have control over. So I will often reframe an improvement idea into something that fits within my sphere of control, so I have a fallback if the grand plan isn't feasible. The reframed idea generally has a much smaller impact, but also a much higher likelihood of getting successfully implemented.
I don't let any of these activities interfere with my current commitments. If an improvement project would require changing the schedule I've committed to, I need to renegotiate that commitment, or delay the work on the improvement. There was a time, when I lived in the ivory tower, that this would sound like blasphemy to me. Now I realize that however important it is to improve how we do things, it's all for naught if we can't keep the business running.
By Danny R. Faught on
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 9:42 AM
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