Vital Software Issues 'N Stuff

Sometimes you have to shock the customer

When I raised some tickets related to cumbersome and ineffective workflows, these were treated low priority by the decision makers. 

I was convinced that one didn't take into account the unexpressed users’ requirements to not just get a user’s job done, but to also get it done quickly.

 Powered by my conviction to change our company's view on these tickets, I prepared a plan.

 When the customers were invited to our offices the very next time to test our new features, I didn’t prepare anymore a bunch of isolated and checklist based test cases. This time, instead, I prepared just one simple and realistic end-to-end scenario that combined the features of productive version 1 with the new upcoming features of version 2.

 I wasn’t astonished to be right with my original concern about the workflow effectiveness but I was really surprised about the reaction of the domain experts. It became obvious so quickly to all of them when they tried to execute the prepared scenario. All agreed that this process isn't at all efficient. One customer even said that they are going to boycot the productive usage if we are not significantly improving the current implementation.

 As a result, the initially low rated internal tickets became a much higher attention and even had to be implemented as part of late change requests in the middle of the stabilization phase. My bad. The timing was a disaster. But the timing was so bad, it was almost good. These late changes payed off. The implemented improvement was significant and worth it. The customer appreciated the correction and our ability to respond quickly to their concerns. 

They probably did because we "shocked" them with what they were getting next. Okay, it worked this time, but I guess we shouldn't do this too often.

(Source: Simply the Test)

The Little Tester #114

These are the made up stories of a team working in an Agile environment. Their daily struggles and successes are presented in a comic/parody/satirical way. Click on the image to see it in full size.

The team members are:

• Little, the main character. The team’s tester.
• Coffee, the team’s Java developer.
• Mr. Fancy, the team’s UI developer.
• Senor, the Senior Developer of the team.
• Kitty, the Scrum Master.
• Glasses, the Business Analyst.
• And the manager.

Disclaimer

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, situations presented are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
• The sole purpose of this comic strip is to be humorous.
• The drawings are made by hand on paper, by means of pencils and fine liners, except for the outline, by the author. Hence their imperfection.

Cyndi wants you to know: "The formatting of this article went shite due to causeless use of HTML <blockquote> tags in the original post." 🤷‍♀️

The Little Tester #113

These are the made up stories of a team working in an Agile environment. Their daily struggles and successes are presented in a comic/parody/satirical way. Click on the image to see it in full size.

The team members are:

• Little, the main character. The team’s tester.
• Coffee, the team’s Java developer.
• Mr. Fancy, the team’s UI developer.
• Senor, the Senior Developer of the team.
• Kitty, the Scrum Master.
• Glasses, the Business Analyst.
• And the manager.

Disclaimer

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, situations presented are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
• The sole purpose of this comic strip is to be humorous.
• The drawings are made by hand on paper, by means of pencils and fine liners, except for the outline, by the author. Hence their imperfection.

Cyndi wants you to know: "The formatting of this article went shite due to causeless use of HTML <blockquote> tags in the original post." 🤷‍♀️

The Little Tester #112

These are the made up stories of a team working in an Agile environment. Their daily struggles and successes are presented in a comic/parody/satirical way. Click on the image to see it in full size.

The team members are:

• Little, the main character. The team’s tester.
• Coffee, the team’s Java developer.
• Mr. Fancy, the team’s UI developer.
• Senor, the Senior Developer of the team.
• Kitty, the Scrum Master.
• Glasses, the Business Analyst.
• And the manager.

Disclaimer

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, situations presented are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
• The sole purpose of this comic strip is to be humorous.
• The drawings are made by hand on paper, by means of pencils and fine liners, except for the outline, by the author. Hence their imperfection.

Cyndi wants you to know: "The formatting of this article went shite due to causeless use of HTML <blockquote> tags in the original post." 🤷‍♀️

Late change requests

(Source: Simply the Test)

The Little Tester #111

These are the made up stories of a team working in an Agile environment. Their daily struggles and successes are presented in a comic/parody/satirical way. Click on the image to see it in full size.

The team members are:

• Little, the main character. The team’s tester.
• Coffee, the team’s Java developer.
• Mr. Fancy, the team’s UI developer.
• Senor, the Senior Developer of the team.
• Kitty, the Scrum Master.
• Glasses, the Business Analyst.
• And the manager.

Disclaimer

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, situations presented are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
• The sole purpose of this comic strip is to be humorous.
• The drawings are made by hand on paper, by means of pencils and fine liners, except for the outline, by the author. Hence their imperfection.

Cyndi wants you to know: "The formatting of this article went shite due to causeless use of HTML <blockquote> tags in the original post." 🤷‍♀️

Digging in the mud

As a software tester, I often feel like being an archeologist. I am analyzing artefacts that are found in requirements, use-cases, user-stories, emails, phone calls, balcony talks, meetings, defects, etc. I am collecting all these wide spread pieces of information and try to put them back together as accurate as possible. Unlike the two men in the excavation, I like to do this kind of job.When the connected pieces turn into a nice picture in my head, I am gluing them together in the form of well documented test cases or - if it is a really large "dinosaur" - in a final report that explains all information needed for other stakeholders but also for me so we don't need to start digging at the same place when later someone asks a similar question.

(Source: Simply the Test)

It was a bear, for sure (overvalued bugs)

(Source: Simply the Test)

The Little Tester #110

These are the made up stories of a team working in an Agile environment. Their daily struggles and successes are presented in a comic/parody/satirical way. Click on the image to see it in full size.

The team members are:

• Little, the main character. The team’s tester.
• Coffee, the team’s Java developer.
• Mr. Fancy, the team’s UI developer.
• Senor, the Senior Developer of the team.
• Kitty, the Scrum Master.
• Glasses, the Business Analyst.
• And the manager.

Disclaimer

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, situations presented are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
• The sole purpose of this comic strip is to be humorous.
• The drawings are made by hand on paper, by means of pencils and fine liners, except for the outline, by the author. Hence their imperfection.

Cyndi wants you to know: "The formatting of this article went shite due to causeless use of HTML <blockquote> tags in the original post." 🤷‍♀️