Funny things come to mind when you clean out the fridge… For whatever reason, and I know there are
many, you find things are not as you suspected they were…
You may find at least some of the following:
- · Things with expired dates
- · Things with different colors than when they first arrived
- · Things that you can longer define
- · Things that need cleaning up
- · Things that are past cleaning up
- · Things that have been neglected
I decided that I would tackle that appliance tonight and
give it a good cleaning out. While I try
to do this regularly sometimes my schedule, or that of my loved ones, makes
this take a back seat…
While I was cleaning it out I got to thinking about test
case maintenance… and how similar the task is, how similar the discoveries can
be.
Test case writing and maintenance are not my most beloved
passions, not unlike my poor refrigerator.
I prefer a jaunt to the garden to weed, playing outside, doing almost
anything else… to cleaning out the fridge.
In testing, I prefer exploratory testing, learning new things, creating new scenarios…
to taking on the task of test case maintenance… it is a royal pain in the
derriere… it is a necessary evil…
One of my most fundamental rules when it comes to test cases
is: if I don’t want to run it, I don’t
want to write it. This is not too much
unlike my refrigerator: if I don’t want
to eat it, I don’t want to buy/cook it.
Match one.
Things age… or change… or decompose… These things “do” this
at different times. One food may be good
for 3 weeks, another for 3 days. The
same is true for a “test case”. A test
case may need to be documented for a new feature with certain expectations from
the stakeholders. You may find really
good reasons why this feature should change, or, the users may find some reason
for this… thus they may be good for 3 days or 3 weeks… Match two.
Things aren’t what they appear to be… Your fridge may seem “full”
because it has much in it… plastic containers full of left-overs… BBQ sauce
from 2005… seasonings that have since outlasted their flavor… The same is true for test cases. If they passed successfully since 2005 are
they valid to run, re-run, re-re-run again anymore? Have they out-lived any chance at all at
finding a bug? Are they “left-over” from
a previous set of feature requirements?
Match three.
The sheer number of it all… Who doesn’t want to open the
refrigerator and find that it looks full?
Who doesn’t want to see the test case numbers look “robust”? It is only when you look deeper and clean it
out that you can spot the “holes” in that really quickly. Let’s say you use ingredient A to cook a lot
of your family’s favorite dishes, but you have been busy lately… Now, after
cleaning it out, you know ingredient A is really missing or outdated. The same is true for test cases on Feature
A. Match four.
Today things change very quickly… not unlike the items we
keep in our refrigerators… they may fit any of the items listed in the bullet
points above…. And they need cleaning/maintenance… if they are at all to hold
their value…
This may be not a chore I hold near and dear to my heart,
but it matters as much as cleaning out my own personal fridge does… I would
rather find the items myself than have others find them for me…
Note: The same can be said for every now and again re-checking your own bug reports... are they still "fresh"... are they still "valid"...
3 comments:
Hi,
I share your feelings on maintaining test cases. I hate it. I know management prefer them over E.T. so we need them, but I hate writing and executing them. I just want to test what I feel needs attention as in terms of risks and potential errors. It is my job to find bugs, so let me do that and not write "novels" (bunch of test cases that I have written in my testing career so far). I'm not a writer, that's not my job.
/Jasminka
Hi Jasminka,
Stakeholders generally DO prefer to have documented test cases, and I completely agree with this policy. I think about it as if I were the one whose name was on a product. Just because someone "tells" me they are testing my product, I would need to see some proof of coverage.
In my perfect little world of testing, all written test cases should be automated. Thus freeing up testing time to get past the running of manual test cases and into the wide horizons of exploratory testing. But, in my real world, I still want these available to manual testers in case something happens and automation is broken.
My dream has always been to write a novel... but not a test case one, so I agree on that, totally...
I disagree that writing test cases to the approval of stakeholders is "not my job", we are a service oriented career. Our job is to serve the stakeholders. If we cannot tolerate their practices, then perhaps the problem is the particular organization and not the job we do.
I find that if I have a "pain point" with any given task that I am required or expected to do, that if I figure out a better way, or an improved way... and quantify that way to the stakeholders, they generally allow the change.
Two things my first manager taught me that stay with me to this day:
1. Don't ask me if you can have something, tell me why I should give it to you. Quantify the request.
2. Always question the processes you do. Can they be improved, changed, etc. Don't just do things because "that is how we always do it".
These two things stuck with me like glue. They are valuable lessons worth learning and applying to this craft.
I can see you have a passion for testing... and learning about it... Keep it up! :)
Hi,
you definitely give some very good tips. Especially the one about "showing" that a change is better and not just ask for it without any proof.
Also, you are right. If the roles were reversed and I were a stakeholder I probably too would ask for some proof that a team is testing my product well.
But but, I'm really not sure if stakeholders look at test cases in details. I doubt it. They may ask for coverage yes, but I don't understand why SBTM reports would not be good enough to show what was covered.
Still yes, I would surely think differently if I owned the product.
You seem very passionate too and I love your blog. Very good toughts and posts.
/Jasminka
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