October 29, 2015
August 22, 2014
Our project management system - Spira, contains several standard features for bug-tracking, two of which often get confused, and are often asked about in training classes. These two are Priority and Severity. They are touched on in the manual, but here it is from the point of a tester.
Read MoreJuly 24, 2014
Is it a "BUG"? We call them bugs because of that time so long ago, when a moth made its presence known in an early computing device. Bug has come to be known as a generic term for anything that does not work correctly. We say it is buggy. This is a bug. But it is not really a good indicator of what is happening unless we have an agreed upon lexicon, and even then, staff new to the process would require training. Read More
July 17, 2014
A few months back, I was training a group on test management using SpiraTeam. All was going well until I mentioned the ability to design a work-flow. Instantly I heard the sighs and groans. WHY? Read More
July 15, 2014
It is quite a popular notion that there should be formally recorded associations or links between defects and software code configuration items. This can explain why a piece of code has later been modified and also helps individuals find their way back to the ‘fix’ should the defect be found to still exist upon re-testing. But there are other ways to achieve this and so the question is: can the relationship between the defect and the code really be the most important one? Read More
May 29, 2014
I recently had cause to call my bank. Now, I wasn’t expecting to speak to a real person right away; I don’t pay enough fees for that. But I was at least hoping that relatively quickly I could press 1, then press 3 and then 2 to get to the right person to ask my question. Like most of us, I have battled automated help systems on many occasions and I know the routine. I had checked the support website and looked for pre-existing answers to my question, but with no luck and so now I had turned to the phone. As an aside, can it really be true that every organization out there needs me to listen to their entire message because they have all changed their menu options? Are they ever going to get them right? Read More
May 2, 2014
I doubt most people would struggle to answer the question, “What is a defect?” After all, we know what a defect looks like when we come across it, don’t we? “The system has encountered an unexpected error and must shut down,” is a message that leaves us in no doubt that there must be a defect in there somewhere. But knowing a defect when we see one is very different from being able to define what ‘defect’ actually means. Read More