Learning Testing from Japanese Fishermen

Hi Reader,

"Pradeep, you learnt testing from fishermen ?"
"Yea, I did"
"Ah ! you are a good narrator, so why don't you tell that story to us ?"
"Sure, its my pleasure but before that I want to ask you some questions"

"Yea, go ahead"
"You have been reading my blog for quite sometime right?"
" Yes ! any doubt ?"

"As a Tester, I need to be skeptic right?"
"Ok boss, you are a tester, I do agree"
"Now tell me how much of change has there been in your work/life after you have been reading my blog"
" ........................... " .... before I let you know what that person said , assume, I asked you this question , what would be your reply ?"

Now I am sure that even you are eager to listen to the story .... My cousin sent me this and thanks to her, I could learn something about testing ....

_ Learning testing from Japanese Fishermen_

In Japan, people are supposed to be fond of eating fish, as fresh as possible but the waters out there did not hold much fish and hence fishermen were forced to go deeper. By going deeper the time to return back increased which made the fish stale and not fresh.

Now, not now exactly, the fishermen, introduced a freezer into their boats but yet Japan janta was smart enough to figure out the frozen food.

Someone decided to have a tank of water in bigger boats and this helped the fishermen bring the fish alive, yet Japan janta could smell that fish lost its freshness without movement for the time it was brought from sea to land.

This became a problem, to the fishermen and the Japanese janta.

How can you make the fish to keep moving in the tank docked on the boat ?

Japanese are known for their smartness and someone came up with the idea of having a shark in the tank which would eat a few fish and ensure others keep moving here and there to save their lives.

"Niakota ! Sara mura , Jia poo" ( Wow ! this is fresh tasty fish )
( Did I say that was Japanese, don't assume :P )

"Pradeep, what the hell is there to learn something about testing from the above story?"
"Cool down, there is, at least I had, why not you, if you read further"


As a Tester, what did I learn ?

1. A (good) tester, ideally, should train his mind for sequential thinking. Look the fishermen, they approached the problem step by step and they could solve it.
2. A (good) tester, ideally, should be aware of right tools and devices to test something. "Pradeep, this is a bit puzzling, can you prove the above sentence with the story you have narrated?" ... Yes, of course. Look at fishermen who thought of a freezer as a solution initially and reverted back to a tank, which is traditional. Here, I try to explain, freezer and tank are the tools he used to break down the problem complexity.
3. A (good) tester, ideally, should develop a lateral thinking. Look at those fishermen, they brought in a shark. When you pause at the story just reading the line, a shark was put in the tank.. at least, I could imagine, half the fish would be eaten up by the shark but I never thought that it was to keep others active. Masterpiece lateral thinking example.
4. A (good) tester, ideally, should be keen at looking things and keep questioning "why is it happening that way?"... Look at me, I have learnt the above points from the story I read.
5. A (good) tester, ideally, should inculcate his learnings to work, else he is a dumb ass. Look at me ( not for seeing the dumb ass ), I have inculcated those learnings, already. I gave this post to you in a sequential order and questioned you through this post "Am I doing a good job, are these posts helping you?"

__ End of __ Learning Testing from Japanese Fishermen __

"Be a fisherman when testing, catch as much as you can"

Thanks and Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan

pradeep.srajan@gmail.com