Done by Friday

It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory.

I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be.

Perhaps you'd like to join me?

--00--

"Will the testing be done by Friday?"

If the question relates to some prior discussion about scenarios we've agreed to run through before Friday then I'll do my best to base my answer on experience gathered so far. How similar are the scenarios to each other, how long has each taken to set up and explore, what kinds of issues have been found, how many of them do we want to fix, how long will fixes take to deliver and so on.

The way the question is phrased triggers me (I'd prefer something less all-encompassing such as "will we have run through the scenarios we agreed?") but we're at least in a shared context.

If the question introduces some new deadline then I'll assure you that we can stop testing before Friday. Depending on our relationship and the mood in the room, I'll perhaps point out (again) that in general testing isn't "done" done, because there's always another question, another set of constraints, or another variable that we could consider.

Whether we will have covered all the things we (as a group) consider important by then is a different question, not least because we don't know what we'll find between now and Friday. However, knowing that Friday is a deadline we can have a chat about what areas to priortise that would give us the best chance of finding the most useful information for the project in the time we have.

If the question indicates that you think of testing as a rubber-stamp exercise then there's a bit more of a problem. I view testing as the pursuit of potential problems, relevant to people who matter, and I want us to find them in as timely a fashion as possible.

I might like to talk to you about that but I probably wouldn't do it right now because there's clearly some need on your side that I'd like to understand and do my best to help you resolve.

If the question is really "what is the status?" then my answer will run something like this:

the areas we've looked so far, from which perspectives, to what depth
the kinds of things we've found, and the perceived importance of them, to who
the risks we are aware of, some sense of their likelihood given what we know, and open questions

I'll also ask about constraints (do we need to stop before Friday? For what reason?) and then try to negotiate our next steps together.

Finally, if the question is you trying to wind me up because you know I care about this stuff I'll answer "Yes, because Robinson Crusoe is incredibly busy trying to keep your other projects afloat."
Image: Victorian Web

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