"Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright"- Morgan Freeman, Shawshank Redemption. This blog is from one such bird who couldn't be caged by organizations who mandate scripted software testing. Pradeep Soundararajan welcomes you to this blog and wishes you a good time here and even otherwise.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

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

9 comments:

Pradeep Soundararajan said...

Hi DrunKn MonKy,

Thanks but you haven't answered my question.

Keep fishing, till then.

Anonymous said...

Amazing relevancy all through your blog. Simple, yet GREAT.

Anonymous said...

do you know something about yourself ?

You are too smart, the testing community should be proud of having you and yes, I do learn a lot out here.

Anonymous said...

When I came here, I thought it is just another blog. Now this is my reference material.

Anonymous said...

Any body can learn tools and devices out of the stuff available,one of the key point Pradeep told is that" Lateral Thinking"Guys & girls get to know these kinda stuff which are Really motivating for any person who reads this blog.

Ramanujam Manchikalapudi

Anonymous said...

The one thing the keeps a tester unique from his peer is the thought process that goes behind and pradeep rightly stressed on that. Good Work dude.. Keep it up. and keep dreaming about the best blogs to come. Since you have framed up your blogs in such a way that you have set humungous expectations for the junta. Dont Disappoint us.

Pradeep Soundararajan said...

Do you think I would dissapoint ?

Well, I have read my own blog more than 2000 times by now just to get self inspired and write better and am sure each post is a good one and the next post is a better one.

More to come from Tester Tested ! and Pradeep Soundararajan :P

Anonymous said...

Your blogs now become one type of addiction for me...after coming to office first thing i do is to search for new article if you have posted.

Pradeep Soundararajan said...

Hi Abhijeet,

Thanks for the addiction and hope you do inculcate any good things that you might have missed out.

I am wondering why I did not know a person who is addicted to this blog of mine so long?

I then did get an answer - "he did not contact you" :D