The Hidden Requirements: Exploring Emotions with Placebos
A placebo is designed and used primarily for psychological benefit. Things like sugar pills, elevator door close buttons, and office thermostats aim “to please”, rather than have any other, “real” effects. Now, consider a placebo in the context of software and testing. What if “pleasing” is the only intended and expected result? How can it be tested? What does a bug look like? And, do these ideas also apply to non-placebos that have other, “real” effects? In this workshop, we’ll explore placebos, nocebos, the placebo/nocebo response, illusion and locus of control, relativism, wants, needs, and expectations, and will connect it all to testing.
Managing Quality within Budget and Schedule Constraints: Successful and Unsuccessful Techniques
In this webinar, Rex will discuss ways that test professionals can help their project teams resolve that quandary. First, it’s important to recognize the trade-offs being made, and then test professionals can promote the five elements of making successful trade-offs: shared vision; disciplined management; quality in, and bugs out, throughout; focused testing; and, sending the right message. Rex will illustrate these five elements with a variety of case studies and examples.
Listen to Your Defects
In this webinar, Rex will discuss important things test professionals can learn by listening to defects. He’ll illustrate these insights with a variety of case studies and examples. You’ll walk away ready to listen to your defects, and to understand what they’re telling you.
The “World Series” of Test Requirements
As I made changes within the quality control (QC) team, the program manager noticed the progress being made. Not only had I taken the burden off the subject matter experts (SME’s) during user acceptance test (UAT), I had taken some pressure off the program...
Beautiful Testing Satisfies Stakeholders
This article, contributed by STP guest editor Rex Black, is reprinted from “Beautiful Testing: Leading Professionals Reveal How They Improve Software” (O’Reilly, October 2009). The book, edited by Tim Riley and Adam Goucher, is a compilation of essays from 27...