Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play; No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day. That is part of a poem by Thomas Gray, and I'm thinking about it now as I sit in … [Read more...] about Covid-19 Reminds Us Why Testing Matters
Satisfice Blog
Bug Pipeline Reaction: Paul Szymkowiak and How Context-Driven Thinkers Talk
Many years ago— around 2001 if I remember— I worked with Paul Szymkowiak on improving the testing side of the Rational Unified Process (RUP). Paul was on the RUP team, proper, while I was an outside … [Read more...] about Bug Pipeline Reaction: Paul Szymkowiak and How Context-Driven Thinkers Talk
Unclogging the Bug Pipeline
(Thanks to Michael Bolton for structural editing and for helping me develop this concept, which grew out of our recent testopsy. Thanks to Frances White and Marius Francu, on the RST Slack forum, for … [Read more...] about Unclogging the Bug Pipeline
Assess Quality, Don’t Measure It
How to measure quality is a popular question. The answer I want to give is easy to say, but not so popular: “Stop! Quality can’t be measured, but it can be discussed and assessed. Focus on that … [Read more...] about Assess Quality, Don’t Measure It
To What Have I Been Up?
I should blog more. I know. It's good for business. What have I not been blogging? I'm distracted by work. What work? Improving the Rapid Software Testing methodology and training. I am going … [Read more...] about To What Have I Been Up?
Let’s Encourage Live Thinking
In one of my classes, I start things off by challenging the students to "make a diagram of testing." Some people make complicated pictures, some make simple ones. Some are literal, some are … [Read more...] about Let’s Encourage Live Thinking
Why I Am a Tester
Alex Bunardzic asked me a question in a comment that inspires me to do a new post: "To me (and I’m sure you’ll find ways to convince me how wrong I am), if someone is intent on improving the … [Read more...] about Why I Am a Tester
The Immaturity of CMM
Originally published in 1994, this article pre-dates "Agile" as a named thing. It was written out of a culture that was critiquing authoritarian and factory-oriented approaches to software … [Read more...] about The Immaturity of CMM
How Much is Enough? Testing as Story-Telling
This was on my old site as an HTML file for a long time. I've re-edited and corrected it for modern times. A classic question asked about test strategy is "How much testing is enough?" If you're … [Read more...] about How Much is Enough? Testing as Story-Telling
Public Class in the Seattle Area
This is to announce I will be teaching my Rapid Software Testing Explored class in downtown Bellevue, WA, on August 6-8. It will likely be the only time I teach in a classroom, in the United States, … [Read more...] about Public Class in the Seattle Area