What is our competition on?

There is a trend that is picking up in the software testing industry. To be more precise, I am talking about a trend of competitions, prizes and rewards. This is good. I love the idea of being able to compete globally and with testers whom I may not have known otherwise.

When someone wins a testing challenge and the report is published to those who participated, it influences others to ape some of the good practices and end up creating their own styles out of it. The flip side, what the winner does becomes best practice for wannabe winners of the next competition. For instance, having been practicing video recording as a part of my bug reporting style, I posted videos of bugs in Utest bug battle last year. When I coach testers, I also help them understand what kind of bugs need video recording and help them practice it. Santhosh Tuppad who is a regular bug battle winner in Utest told me that many testers have started to upload videos instead of screenshots and he published an experience report where he mentioned that point.

At this point of my post, I'd like to appreciate all companies putting up competitions that is helping to bring out new, fresh and different kind of talent to the public view. I like to support you in as many ways I can. I have been a participant, creator, winner and loser of such competitions. Its all fine.


However, I am starting to have some concerns about the competitions that are coming up which demands voting by public to decide who wins. Now, I need to clarify something. I am not talking against those companies who are doing it. As a matter of fact, I am not talking against "anything". The company wants a way to get more people to know about them and such voting based competitions help in doing that. If I start an organization, I'd like to do things that helps in getting a lot more people to know about the services my organization offers. 

The problem with the voting to decide a winner, could be hurting, to those who have put in lot of efforts but couldn't gather enough votes. For instance, Eurostar conferences organized a Videostar competition. By looking at the marketing flyer of the competition which said something like, "Put on your Holywood director hat" and about creativity, I assumed the video with the Holywood movie type creativity will probably get me to be the Videostar and did the Joker act. Anne Marie did a video that I personally liked. Nothing less of all that was from Rob Lambert who had a different way of putting things that he wanted to talk. Maybe all that was driven by seeing how creative were Eurostar folks who put up this video. Finally, the video that won, by that I mean, the one that got the most number of votes, was not so exciting as others in the list. We are independent consultants who don't have a mailer list to whom we can send and help generate a lot of votes for ourselves. Being an employee of a large company and gathering votes is much easier, especially if the Head of Testing is the one asking for votes. I guess that's what happened. Now, I am not questioning about anyone's ability but I am talking about the system.

I could have still won. I could have got a 99% lead over all others if I wished to. The Videostar page recorded a vote from a browser-computer and registers it or probably sets a cookie as well so that I cant vote twice. However, I could clear the cookies, refresh the page and vote for me again. How long would it take to automate this and leave it running overnight to wake up in the morning to declare myself as a winner?

I didn't win the Videostar. That is a testimonial that I didn't try winning with the "hacked way" I discovered. Oh, if you think there would have been an assessment of votes coming in from the same IP, I could have gone a step ahead and used the cloud to make it up or use tools that helps me mask my IP and hence not reveal where the votes came in from.

In that case, should winning be decided by a panel of judges who may not understand my skills? For instance if I take up the ISTQB Foundation Level exam, I will fail. I did fail in a mock test that I took online. Does that mean, I don't know how to test or I don't know the foundation of software testing? 

A competition has a set of rules. I am just asking if the rules can be made in such a way that the skill factor plays a vital role in winning and not the votes or my ability to memorize answers and vomit it out on an exam.

Let me repeat this: I am fine with companies organizing competitions to increase their visibility but I want to know if there can be a better way to do it than the voting system. I am dreaming of testing competitions where the winner is judged based on the skill demonstrated. A report is published by the panel as to why the winning entry amongst others were eligible for the top prize. Every step we put must help us move forward. Movement is important but there is a vector in it. What direction are we moving in and by what magnitude?

Bug battles are one kind of a competition that I like. There are more kinds of skills that companies can try to focus on. When I organized a testing challenge for Test Republic, I did a Bug Advocacy Challenge. I think there needs to Bug Investigation Challenges, Rapid Test Planning Challenges, Test of agility challenges, Test Management Challenges, Interviewing Tester Challenges, Collaborating with Developers Challenge, Understanding Requirements Challenge that can help in bringing out winners with skills of different kinds. 

So, there was a competition announced from Eurostar on blogging. I was about to pounce on it because I wanted to go to Eurostar and I have been one of the earliest Eurostar blogger. I skimmed through to see if there was anything related to voting and there it was. I decided to not enter the competition. 

I would be highly stupid if I was trying to write this post to create a negative impression of Eurostar or any other organization. That is not my intention. I'd like to say that Eurostar is a great conference I want to go but not because I got a lot of votes than someone else. I want to go if my skills get me there. I understand why Eurostar or companies that are running a voting based competition might be doing these competitions but I'd like them to think if there can be a better way to do things. I have respect for organizations like Utest and Eurostar because they are trying to do some work that is helping people change things the way they do. That is the reason I want them to be able to cause a much higher and better influence on the community, to take it forward. 

A tip to the winner

If you, a tester, happen to win any testing competition, here is something that I hope you think about from what I say to myself from my experience of winning several testing competitions; I won because the mightiest chose not to compete. This thought helps you a lot when you work with people. They shall embrace you not see you as a person they should stand away or just merely stare at.

Competitions could remain but what is our competition on? 

• Choice A.  Number of votes
• Choice B. the breadth and depth of skills? 

To add a little humor to this serious post; what is your vote for? A or B?

Black Viper Testing Technique

Image credits

The following conversation is a copy paste from LinkedIn's Software Testing & Quality Assurance group in which I write a lot.

Quality Leader at org_1 asks :What is Robust testing?

Senior Software Engineer - Quality Assurance from somewhere responds:

Never heard about it?I googled the term and found one helpful link. http://www.phadkeassociates.com/index_files/robusttesting.htm but Wiki doesn't have any results for it, as per me its not as concrete as other testing techniques.


and then XXX, PMP, Associate QA Manager from some_organization

Robust testing means the degree to which a software system or component can function correctly in the presence of invalid inputs or stressful environmental conditions

Sr Software QA Engg from elsehwere responds

Is it something like the stability Testing? I never heard of this terminology.


Pradeep Soundararajan : Independent Software Tester with an experience of 7 million and 4 hundred mistakes in testing responds

Same as Black Viper testing.

Why good software testers should come out of the well?

One problem that I constantly spot whenever I meet a good tester in India - they don't blog and publicly write or speak. That''s why some people continue to think about me as a good tester.

The recognition that an organization gives could be fine as long as you stay in the organization or as long as the organization is doing fine. That's why many people stick on to an organization for quite sometime because they start hating fresh water. They accept to be in a well. With growing infrastructure needs and changing economy, some wells have to be wiped out and all frogs in it have to hop to a different destination.

I was once surrounded by bad frogs who made me feel that I was a great tester. I would never want to be there again because that hampers my learning although it pleases my ego as long as I am with them. A couple of months back I interviewed a tester who had been awarded as the best among 1100 testers of his organization. He was pathetic and I think the right one in the organization didn't get the award.

A tester from Mumbai who claimed to be superior to me in knowledge and skills wrote to me and said, "You are misguiding the community by giving wrong ideas" and my reply to him is this, "Well, if you are so concerned about the community then you should write a blog and say to the world that Pradeep Soundararajan is giving wrong ideas and the reasons of why his ideas are wrong" for which he never got back to me with his blog link.

There are several testers whom I helped to start a blog and only some of them are doing fine with it. Some people started a blog and sent me a link with a note that - you inspired me. If I revisit their blogs, most of them ended up not continuing it because they realized its hard to keep blogging. The other dimension is - it is easy to blog if you are just doing a cut copy paste plagiarize, not owe credits to original authors and expose yourselves as a fool.

2 months back, I interviewed Harish, who had lost his job from a reputed organization which decided to shut down its operations in Bangalore as they faced the worst part of recession at their US office.

Harish is the kind of tester whom I'd want to work with for the way he challenged my arguments, sharp eyes that observes little things going around the screen and has good reporting skills, good communication skills, but then, my client had to postpone their recruitment plans. I couldn't get an opportunity to work with him. If you are looking for one, I'd suggest you talk to Harish.

I wish I could have linked to his blog to get you curious about him and that's what is missing. I asked him:

PS: You don't blog?
Harish: Why should I?
PS: For the world to know about a good tester.
Harish: Why should the world know about me?
PS: Consider asking yourselves as to why shouldn't the world know about you?
Harish: Let me think about it.

After a month, Harish calls up, "Hey Pradeep, I haven't found a job yet. I realize this wouldn't have happened if the world knew about my testing skills. The interviews test something different than my skills"

So here is a post on my blog for all those Harish of the world to wake up and start blogging. A blog of your own serves a core purpose that surrounds all of us - to learn - things, ways, people, testing, ideas, challenges, and more...

Myths that surround wannabe-tester-bloggers

If I should blog, I should have good writing skills: Ha! You should read Pradeep's first post and then you would realize that he was more pathetic in writing than what he is today (or what you might have been a couple of years back). However, as you peruse through the blog you would realize that I have improved a thousand leaps. It comes from practice and a blog helps you to practice writing. Two things never happen to people with this myth - better writing skills and blog.


If I should blog, I should be an expert: I must admit that I thought of myself as the world's best tester till I met James and then more people like you. My blog has helped me meet thousands of people who helped me understand that I am not the world's best tester. That's important to learn because it gives me learning opportunity to try to get as close to what I think I was. You don't need to be an expert to blog but people commenting on your posts can help you to be an expert of the field. They might surprise you with a question that you think over for the next 2 years to find answers for it and in search of an answer to that question you discover a whole new world of testing.

If I should blog, I should have thousands of readers and comments: I am my first blog reader. I primarily write to practice writing and thinking. I have been writing this post over 2 days and I test my writing. It helps me writing some good documents at work that influences decisions. If my writing can be of help to others then I am glad. I do not write to get thousands of readers or commentors. No matter the world stops reading my blog, I would continue to write for one regular and serious reader - that's me.

If I should blog, I should write in a way that fetches appreciation: Saurav Ganguly, a cricket player from India was axed out of the team for poor performance a couple of years ago. The internet in India was full of jokes about his poor performance but then he made a great comeback to the worldcup squad. He was interviewed in NDTV for his comeback and a journalist asked him, "How did you make this great comeback when most parts of India, including Kolkata, your hometown was against your performance?" to which he replied, "I didn't spend time bothering things that are not under my control ( people making fun and jokes about his performance) and focussed on spending more time for things that are under my control ( practice, improving performance, consistent results in league matches) and I think that's what helped me". I took this as a great lesson to myself and focussed on doing things under my control and not bothering things that are not under my control.


If I should blog, I should have more time than what I have: Actually, we spend time on lot of useless things everyday. If you cut that out of one day in a week that provides you time to blog. I usually laugh at people who say they have no time to blog. I woke up a little early today to complete this post. I think I wouldn't die if I get up early. As James Bach said on Twitter: "I don't teach my son the value of discipline and hard work, because that *can't* be taught-- only learned."

If I should blog, I should be a good tester: A real good tester would want to get tested to see if he is really good and would be glad to know he is not good since that helps in improving him. A blog is probably one of the ways in which you get to know about the holes in your education as a tester. Once you know that, start plugging them. You could aim to be a good tester and start blogging than wait for you to become a good tester and then start blogging.

There are number of other ways you can demonstrate to the world about your testing skills and I think you should do that. Ah! No, not by saying you are proud to be ISTQB certified, that would drive away people.

PhilK recently interviewed many tester bloggers and I was one of them. Read my interview here and do not forget to read other interviews as well.

If you are good, the world should know about you. If you are hesitant to let the world know about you - you aren't good enough, maybe. Good tester doesn't mean you offer advice to the world, it means you present your work and be open to learning from others if they happen to argue. You may be a good tester and choose not to write a blog, I still respect that but I think you can get better by writing one.

So, time for you to get back to your work, ignoring all things in this post and continue to say, "If I should blog,". If you are already doing it get more people to be like you or do more with that.

Update: There is a test challenge at Test Republic that might be of your interest

Checkmate heuristic :: A security testing attack

It has been five times over the last six months that someone considered hiring me before making a release decision or after getting skeptical about scripted tests.

Amidst recessionary times, someone considered outsourcing some testing work to me from United States. An advanced version of the product was slated for a release in the next couple of days. The United States company had outsourced development and testing work to a Structured Fancy Name Process Following Disciples company who had ran through thousands of tests over it and had achieved >98% test case pass, a week before today.

Someone in the United States company thought they'd like some Exploratory Testing and I got the opportunity to lay my hands on it to perform a Rapid Testing on it. The charter for me was to report any security related threats and usability problems.

I found about 14 potential problems in about 5 hours. On the 6th hour I found 2 more security problems:

• I could reset the password of any account by tweaking the variables that the client was using to interact with the server.

• I could stop auto e-mailers reaching any registered mail account in a similar manner as above.
  

I then tried to reset the password of the dummy account I was using. No e-mail reached me. I then thought, "How about reset of admin account?" and then did the same.

The password was reset and no e-mail reached the admin, as auto e-mailers were stopped. So, I asked the admin of the UnitedStates company to login from his credentials and the response was a pleasent, "What did you do and How did you do that?"

Subsequently, all other users were blocked. Only the admin could release the lock but the admin could not log in to the system. 2 hours of outage till someone got into the database to recover the admin account.

You write a lengthy email, hit the submit button and the application prompts for your Username and Password. You enter them and it says, "Incorrect Username or Password". You attempt to reset your own password but the email does not reach you.

Checkmate!

Excerpts from participants work - Practical Hands on Software Testing Training

• Are you curious to look at excerpts of the participants work that we have been consistent in achieving from Hands on Testing Training that I talked about in 2008?
• Are you aware of the power of young generation?
• Are you aware of the power of coaching them with better education in software testing?
• Are you aware of the impact of providing better education in software testing to young generation today is going to be one of the key factors of deciding the future state of software testing?
• Are you aware you can read more about this?

Read more... and write to us ( isupport [//at//] etifinishingschool.com ) know if you'd like to support this initiative.

Karnataka state missing from official Indian government website

Your search for Bug Free Software ends here

Test 2008 was a scintillating software testing conference. I never slept before 2 AM every night around the conference dates. I had great discussions with interesting testing minds like Rahul Verma, Aswin Palaparthi, Shrini Kulkarni, Dhanashekaran , Ravindran, Shyam Sridhar and others.

During one of our conversations the topic of "bug free software" popped up and someone mentioned that he had hope to see bug free software within his life span as technology is growing rapidly.

I have heard a lot of people talk about bug free software so have you. What have your replies to them been? Have you been one such who hoped for bug free software?

Here are my answers:

• Oh yeah, you don't need to wait for the technology to advance, bug free software already exists. Have you shipped software products to your customers? Were there bugs in the products you shipped? Did you charge your customers for the bugs? Did you make the bugs free for them? So, you did ship a bug free software! So, all software we ship is bug free!

• I shall give you the link to download a software that remains in bug free state in a specific context. Unfortunately the bugs start showing up if you try downloading the file, opening the file, install the software or start using it. I can guarantee you its bug free if you don't do anything of that sort with it.
  

• It might be a good idea to read Jerry Weinberg's book on Perfect Software and other Illusions about Testing in which he makes an attempt to make some of us conscious of the fact that - humans are imperfect thinkers, how can you expect an imperfect thinker to produce something that is perfect?

• I think, even, accidentally humans can't produce bug free software. The idea of bug free software itself is the result of imperfect thinking and imperfect understanding of software and bugs. We might end up making better inferences and conjectures about what they are if we are on a continuous learning path.

• "Software systems can easily become complex. Computers allow us mortals to create complex systems that are beyond our ability to fully understand. We testers seek out software problems based on what we understand. We cannot completely test the software. We use a variety of tools and approaches to learn as much as possible. However, we are unlikely to completely understand a complex software system." - Ben Simo

Here is an example of how imperfect our thinking is getting as the Earth is growing older and older: There are some professions in this world that are existing for thousands of years and yet there are no answers to many questions that people in that profession face. Software as a profession has started to be in existence over the past 30-40 years and most people think there are answers for all questions we face.

Here is another example - I am a perfect thinker.

--
Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." --Yours truly

Happy testing and Sad Testing

I don't know from where I heard "Happy Testing", the first time and fear to think if it echoed within me. I also don't know how I caught those words to sign all my e-mails to testers I communicate, writing "Happy Testing" at the end of the e-mail. I noticed that a lot of other testers to whom I communicated also started doing that in their e-mail communication to me and in their blog posts. I didn't know what "Happy Testing" meant when I started using it long back but I think this post explains what I mean by Happy Testing.

For the moment, forget about people ( that includes me ) asking you to do good testing, better testing, great testing, pleasing customers, pleasing managers, and getting great hike. Think about doing happy testing.

As a tester what makes me happy is when I find 'a' bug. What makes me more happy is when I find more than a bug. What makes me the happiest is when I find more and more bugs in every product I test.

I come across a lot of Sad testers and observe a pattern of the bugs they find. Most Sad testers that I come across are the ones who follow test scripts or cases to find bugs. You might observe that those Sad testers say "These test cases found those bugs". I am sure if test cases have life, they would be happy set of organisms because a lot of Sad testers owe credit to the test case for whatever bugs they ( humans ) find.

Its not that those Sad testers are always unhappy about the bugs they find, its that they are happy and not happy enough to recognize how they can be more happy.

If finding a bug doesn't make you happy, how sad a tester you are!

Don't ask me the secret of being a "Happy Tester". I am sure a lot of Sad testers won't believe my reply, "Rapid Software Testing, Exploratory Testing and Context Driven Testing that provides me freedom to think, experiment and find a lot of bugs".

In every Skilled Exploratory Testing corporate workshop I do, I challenge testers on testing their product for 90 minutes and find a lot of bugs within that short span. One of the recent experience was in SAS, Pune, where testers started clapping after the 90th minute witnessing the Happy Testing I did. It felt like a Hero to receive clapping from testers for demonstrating Rapid Software Testing.

What I heard from Rajesh K , one of the managers who nominated his team and attended the workshop in SAS over an e-mail was "The bug count has certainly gone up". Happy Testing Rajesh, Vikram, Manoj Nair and their teams.

Jerry Weinberg revamped his website recently and a sentence in his revamped website made me think what Jerry was trying to say and here is the sentence for you "Dedicated to Helping Smart People be Happy". It made me wonder if smart people can be unhappy. I then thought about all those talented testers in India ( and probably other countries, too ) who have been forced to write and execute test cases and follow best practices that might have worked for someone else. That reminds me to say, I get happy when I read Jerry Weinberg's books because reading his work makes smart and I made myself a lot happier when I bought Jerry's books for about 300 US dollars during my trip to Canada.

Speaking of all that, let me ask a question to myself: Am I never unhappy?

Oh yes, whenever I come across people who are unhappy and they don't want to listen to stuff that can make them realize they are smart and can be happy enough, too.

Am I talking as though I am Mr Perfect?

Oh well, I forgot to share with you that an important lesson I learned is that - Humans are fallible and so are their ideas. Everything is a heuristic and it is a choice of heuristics in a suitable context that makes a person smart. If you think Perfect Software and Software Testing is possible, read Jerry Weinberg's Perfect Software and other Illusions about Testing.

Unfortunately, I want so see those sad testers I come across as happy as me. Unfortunately, they aren't happy that I am claiming to be happy by doing things that they think is impractical or hard.

Fortunately there are some sad testers who are smart and want to be more happy. I live to help them. Oh! Did I forget to tell you that I get happy when I help testers find more bugs.


-- Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." --

Testing to avoid being sued or embarrased

North American, European Union and some Asian countries laws and law enforcements are much stricter than those in India. Most testers in India who have not known much about it, tend to ignore that fact while they test. I too didn't know till I actively kept reading. The value of reading is - I know to focus on problems that matter to my clients in countries like North America.

You might want to know that the cost of being sued is heavy on the organizations. All investment on a product and estimated profits go for a toss on that single day of verdict. Organizations like Microsoft, Apple, Sony and a lot of them have suffered losses by being sued or have withdrew released products on the fear of being sued.

As usual, I was browsing through Orkut today [ 8th August 2008 at 14:00 hours ] and recognized a problem. Please go through the following screen shot carefully before you read further.





One of the newly introduced feature from Orkut is an option to let friends know what I am updating in my profile and vice versa. A friend of mine hadn't added his gender in his orkut profile since he created the profile . He probably decided to do it yesterday.

What I ( and you ) see as an update is "XYZ updated gender". Well, he just added his gender and nothing else.

An update of Gender column could mean, "I have changed my gender" - which sounds absurd or might offend people to know that their friends are thinking that he changed his gender or their friends are thinking that she changed her gender.

This might invite trouble to Orkut or Google if there exists a law in any country that organizations should not mislead or misinform about one's gender. If there exists such a law in any country then they might be susceptible to be sued for showing something that mentally hurt one's gender status amongst their friends and other society members to whom the profile is visible. It also causes a lot of embarassment to someone whose friends make a joke of him/her updating "gender".

Orkut has been in news all over India after people claimed it responsible for being a channel for pranksters who even ended up killing for money and a lot of other cases. What if someone attempts a suicide attempt and blames it on Orkut saying "I could not withstand the embarrassment of my friends asking about my gender".

Do you think its worth Google's time to fight such cases?

Do you also think such problems can be found by test case base approach?

Minutes before I was planning to post this, I thought of getting this post tested from Ben Simo and Jonathan Kohl. Ben Simo shared with me that Facebook came out with some gender issues recently.

A lot of other testers might have seen the problem that I highlighted in this post while they were browsing Orkut, why didn't they find it?

Answer Ben's question to find out the answer to above question : Will you recognize a problem if you see it?

--
Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

It's a "tester" who finds a bug, even with the robust Google Search

The image you might see above is a screen shot of what I saw after hitting the 12th page for the search results of "tester". I am not sure if you can reproduce that because I haven't investigated on it but I did plan to capture it to demonstrate:

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it."

Be it with the robust systems like Google Search Engine or with weak systems that we might be using, it is always a HUMAN who finds a bug. A lot of testers I know think of "test case" finding a bug.

There is a test case document that consists of 9856985956895869698569956985698459698 test cases and no tester executing it wouldn't find bugs by itself. There is a test case document with 3 documented tests and a tester takes the help of that to find bugs when he executes, observes the result and recognizes a bug.

A test case is an extension of a test idea. What matters to a tester is a test idea and not the test case. Skilled (exploratory testers ( humans ) use tons of ideas ( heuristics and oracles ) to find and recognize bugs. That's why they can find more bugs that matter than those running thousands of test cases over and over again.

Honestly, 99% of testers I have come across didn't say - "I read each test case each time I have to execute it after I have done it once. Also, I religiously follow what is written in the test case".

What happens when they deviate from the documented test case is, they are exploring and running different test. Maybe they don't like to call it that way because their management who pays wouldn't like to know that they are not executing the "test cases".

That's how customers are fooled by management saying "yes, we are running test cases" and yet benefited by the testing community by running more tests.

A test idea can be executed in hundreds of different ways. Check out the deep analysis made by James Bach and Michael Bolton on What Do Scripts Tell Us?


--
Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." --

A Tester's Personal Bug Diary & Notes

I was wondering if there is a way that I could spill some of my secrets of finding a lot of bugs in anything I test to other testers who read my blog. I think, I finally found a way in which, I also could tell, how some experts with whom I interact are fantastic bug hunters.

It's not a big deal and it is simple enough for you to follow, if you intend to be wonderful bug hunter.

I got this idea after I did testing for a new application that a company developed and claimed that is tested enough gave it to me to check for some bugs that they might have missed.

It was a very important session both for me and for the company. Another interesting thing for me is that the company had sent their developers on some work to my office and I had a chance to make them sit with me while I was testing. Whenever I found a bug, I said a story. Here is one such: "I have not come across a user who would want to hover the mouse all around his monitor to spot that button, which is an important action that he would want to do after entering so much data. Do you know of anyone who would like to do that?" ...

18 important bugs in 32 minutes of testing and I met the mission that I set for myself - Find important problems, quickly. I said to myself "Wow Pradeep" and then added to it, "How could I do it?"

Rapid Testing taught me to observe patterns, carefully and decode information from that can be of great help and yes it did come handy while I observed the pattern of my tests and bugs that I found. I must admit that 95% of the bugs I found in that session are from ideas that I had already developed testing other applications over the past and by registering the pattern in my brain.

And here is an important question I asked to myself: "Pradeep, can you do this wonderful job all time?"

Here is the answer: No! Not all time because it depends on a lot of different factors, out of which some I can control and some I can't.

The pattern and behavior of our own brain is something that I feel is tough to understand. It responds to the queries we put based on the situation in which it is at that phase. If I am upset over something and I put a query to it, it doesn't retrieve immediately or it might have a performance issue at that context but the wonderful brain needs something to rejuvenate.

What can that be?

"Hey Pradeep, you said you found a way to help testers become fantastic bug hunters and now you try answering something else?"

A tester's brain needs questions and ideas and to rejuvenate, motivate, push, think... it needs to look at your own work. No, my idea isn't to carry a video of all testing you do but a database, for sure.

What kind of a database could it be?

Presenting to you, A Tester's Personal Bug Diary & Notes ( right click, save and open )

I pull my ideas to find a lot of bugs from my database that currently resides on my brain. I am excited about the one that I created and I would be using it and someday, I can just filter the results based on the application I test and find many important problems in a few minutes. I am sure my clients would be willing to pay a lot of money as they see cost v/s value.


Off topic: I added a Copyright section to my blog that says: I, Pradeep Soundararajan, own the copyrights of all my writing in this blog. If you want to reproduce a part or any of my posts anywhere on the web provide a link to the blog or a specific post or if you want to reproduce it as a hard copy, please send an e-mail to pradeep.srajan@gmail.com .

Plagiarism (stealing of posts and not owing credits or claiming to be authors) of any of the content or ideas obtained from this blog would be reported to Cyber Crime Department and my tester friends network is wide enough that ones who plagiarize have lesser chance of not landing in jail.

-- Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"Pradeep's first language is not English--his first language appears to be testing." -- Michael Bolton

The bugs within a tester

Hi Reader,

In the recent past, I gave many people, an opportunity to find the bugs in me.

"Yes, I made this post interesting for you, with the first line I wrote".

I am happy, about myself, for giving others freedom and chance to find bugs but I am interested in sharing *the method in which they got a chance to find bugs in me, I facilitated it*.

Sometimes, I consciously provoked it and rest were driven by daily happenings of life.

I am finding it comfortable to talk about the bugs my peers/well wishers, identified, as some bugs are fixed, some are getting resolved at high priority and the rest are deferred, since, I am more sure that, those are my features.

_ The bugs within a tester _

"Pradeep, why did you title it as *The bugs within a tester*, than * The bugs within Pradeep* ?"

I felt, if it applies to me, it applies to someone else too. I am no super human to have a bug that is unique to me, sorry for my assumptions.

Here, I give you an example of an accepted bug (bug fixed, of course) and a deferred bug. There are many such, perhaps, you can get in touch with me, to check, How good you are as a tester, by feeling good for not making mistakes, I have made.

The story of directing and re-directing

As you may be aware or not aware, there are many testers, whom I claim to help, for they contacting me personally, provided their queries are well within my reach of proposing a better solution. It so happened once that one such tester, popped up on Yahoo Messenger, and sought my permission to say something about me and with open heart and mind, I said, "Yes, go ahead". He has been someone who has been in touch with me for quite sometime, since the existence of this blog of mine, which has a great impact of my life.

He had to say "Pradeep, you write so wonderful that I have actually marketed your blog in my company, to the testers, since I feel, it makes a tester, learn a lot, beyond that, think a lot" BUT "I see you talk a lot about yourself, your achievements.... actually, without you mentioning it, people will talk about it for your blog speaks who you are"

ACCEPTED, on the spot !

Bug Fix : Well, the problem is, I spoke a lot about myself, my achievements, and sentences like "I did that, I did this, Wow, I am great" and then I asked myself, *Did I wanted to mean it?*

Answer is, sometimes "Yes" but not always and wondered what made someone think like that?
Well, it is the sense of happiness, I wanted to share, I wanted to make the people whom I am guiding/misguiding, realize, I am eligible for what I have been doing. Also, people who are very close to me know, *How I came out of my so called physical handicappiness*, which makes me so proud of myself, for even the smallest of my achievement, I am doing.

Should I correct this?
Yes, very much, if someone is saying, my blog speaks for me, then I need not waste much energy in speaking and becoming redundant loosing the genuine.

The story of arrogance

I was happy to meet a person, what made him meet me, is this blog. He is a fan ! ( of this blog and not me, unacceptable, I write it)

He is a very good person at heart, I could get it. During a conversation he said something that interested me, to listen more from him "I am one big fan of your blog, I keep checking frequently to see new content in it and yes, there is a learning" BUT "you sound very arrogant, I have seen your replies in a Yahoo group on testing, that made me draw this conclusion"

Analysis:
Could he be right?

Yes, he could be but what was my intention when I sent replies to a few threads, discussing on testing. I went back home, looked at those threads, that made me reply in a very arrogant manner.

I thought for about 20 minutes and when I felt I had done with my thinking, I wanted to defer the bug raised.
All, so called, arrogant replies, were the ones with which, I got irritated, as a passionate tester.

A sample is here -
A manager, in India, had mailed to a Yahoo group,moderated mostly by non indian testers, seeking help to *manage/face the Dev Manager who was trying to screw his happiness*. It was written in such a way that, myself, despite being poor in english, felt *I think I am a bit better than this guy*.

I replied to him in such a way that, if you were in that group, you would also have felt that I was too arrogant in advicing something to the manager but that is all you would know about that, since I replied *you deserve it*.

Truth - I was shocked to see his personal reply, accepting his mistake and seeking help from me for his improvement. It made me feel a bit guilty but I was happy to have come across a person, at managerial level, accepting mistakes and seeking help from a junior. Of course, he sought help, after going through most of the posts here.

Slowly, we started communicating and I am sure, he is improving.
I feel "Who am I to brand *he is improving*?".

When, my so called *arrogance* can bring such good people to me, I wish, having it for this lifetime. For people, who form an opinion about me and leave, you need some more patience, at least with me, if you think I can add any value to you but I feel, I can learn from you.

However, if someone posts, queries that did not involve basic search in internet to find out something, seeking help for day to day activities, I shall, work on my arrogance.

The story of "I am not good at testing myself"

She is smart, since she found the bug I was looking for. She, is my cousin, who wanted me to help her of "How to face a new tough situation in life?".
"Pradeep, I called you up, since I felt it is your testing skills which impressed me. I now feel *in life, you may not be as smart as you are in testing*", is what she could conclude.

Bug Status : Needs further investigation
Accepted partially because, I myself knew, I could not add value for her situation. How can I say "that situation is easy to handle", without me experiencing it or experimenting with it. I should have said "I do not know much, do you still want me to help you?", I took it casual, as I thought, it was personal talks and I can loaf and need not be high technical and professional.

A smart tester,need not be always smart and that too, I am a self certified *smart tester*.

The story of "Lessons from peers"

She - again, was able to identify, a bug, rather an interesting one. That added one more reason to like her (just *like*, mam). "Pradeep, you spend too much time worrying for something that does not deserve it".

Is that a bug? Yes, I thought, I can spend time, worrying more ( spend more time) for things that I have been worrying, which could make me technically more tactical.

Bug Status: Medium Severity - Medium Priority bug, will find a fix, it takes time. ( Am I worrying too much about what you said, mam?)

_ End of _ The bugs within a tester _

Well, that is not the end, some learning's, are a treasure, I would want you to experience it.

Sometime back, I read somewhere "Testers should be good enough to fix the bugs", I didn't believe it but I better believe such things, I fixed the bugs and working on the huge list I have. I am still in Beta !

I personally thank James Bach and Jerry Weinberg , who do not even know, they are inspiring me so much, to an extent that, I started feeling , *The biggest achievement what I claim, itself, is nothing, tons to do,before I can even claim of having done one*.

No, I do not want to miss out Mr Ravi Joshi, Sridhar Krishnamurhty and Girish Hampali as the ones, with whom I am in constant touch, who also make me feel the same. Thanks to you all !

Thanks for taking time reading this.

"When you ought to find bugs in you, even if you are the smartest tester, leave the job to others"

Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan
pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

Disclaimer: Simple truth, yet, happy for being so bold. Not a single time did I think, *I may spoil my own reputation, * [ others :-( ]

Why cant you test without documents?

Hi Reader,

One common problem, we currently face, is to test something, without documents. I have received a couple of mails asking "How do I test without documents?"

I have carried out a research on this and would want to present to you, a way, I think, can benefit most of us. (my assumption)

I have tested this experiment, I am proposing, with myself, with the testers who have contacted me for the above problem and yes, it is, Tester Tested!

Why should you believe me, especially with this post?

It is simple, when you see something wrong, it gives you one more point, to think, to be careful not to commit the mistake, of my experiment.

_ Why cant you test without documents? _

Let me take an example -

Shyam is a tester, working with a company XYZ. He has no documents to test something which he has been asked to test. He has no knowledge of the product he is supposed to test and his seniors are not willing to experiment by having documents to test as they have got accustomed to test in a haphazard way and the most important of all, they de motivate Shyam by telling, he *does not know how to test*.

Assume, if Shyam is OK with what is happening for him -

1. He would, first of all, may not be doing an efficient testing.
2. He could raise features as bugs.
3. He could remain in a state of not knowing the importance of documents.
4. He could work more harder than what ideally a smart tester would.
5. He would not be sure, if he has tested a feature completely.
6. He feels, he is not competent, when he tries to look out for a job.

Now, let me tell you the experiment I propose -

1. First, spend some time, understanding the product by using it. When I mean *use the product*, I would want Shyam to note down the testable scenarios while using the product, make a list and refine the list.
2. Understand the technology, no technology lives without documentation, that is available in the internet.
3. Take a look at the bugs, customer has reported earlier and think, which is the most difficult part, analyze, how did the bug slip from the company and landed in customers belt.
4. Start writing -

When I say start writing, these are the points I expect every Shyam to write -

• Write an understanding document about the product, get it reviewed by someone, who wants to become a better tester in your organization, or catch hold of the manager, if either of them deny, no harm in leaking the document to someone outside, who could be of help to you.
• Join those discussion forums, focused on the technology and product, you are supposed to test. Wait, before you join, prepare a set of good questions, you may want to ask to the community, which will help you, test more efficiently than what you could have.
• Write a Use Case document. A use case document, to my (mis)understanding, is a document, that describes, *What are the possible and impossible ways, does an end user, use the product?* and of course, get it reviewed.
• From each Use Case, generate a test case, chuck out the one the other testers are using, and evaluate and get it reviewed and compared with the earlier draft that the so called testers are using, test the test case document for its effectiveness.
• Further, once you test, write a crystal clear report.
• It does not stop there, take time, immense energy, to write a User guide, get it reviewed by the end users of similar product.

Congradulations Shyam ! You are many steps ahead of people, who crib, for, having to test without documents.

_ Why cant you test without documents? _

There are better ways, I might agree but I disagree, unless you come out with it.

"The probable way to test without documents, is to write one of your own"

Thanks and Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan

pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

Disclaimer: This,unfortunately, is my own experimented, so called *good result* yielding technique to go about testing without documents. In any case, you follow, to find out, it is not good for you, is a lesson, you learnt in a hard way. I can take the credit of imparting a lesson to you. I have missed the point of "You need to work very hard to make it happen" , intentionally. Kindly refer some articles of Test Experts to get more clarity of *How to test without documents?*. Shyam is not the original name and has been change from Pradeep Soundararajan for privacy reasons.

Are you the good tester ISRO needs?

Hi Reader,

You must have heard the news about ISRO's GSLV that failed to even cross the stratosphere. Its a joy for Indian media who project this as a failure of ISRO but as a Tester, I can see the need of a good tester for ISRO. ( if missing )

This rocket was carrying a communication satellite that could cater Direct to Home TV and as any other true Indian, I too wished we get the news that our BOY is doing well up there, unfortunately it didn't happen.

It is a loss of 256 crore INR. "Oh my God! the tax money I paid was in flames :( ".

Now let us start thinking smart, if at all we can think smart...

_ Are you the good tester ISRO needs?_

This loss of rocket, satellite, money, hopes and moreover efforts from lot of scientists is painful.

Let us analyze the problem that may would have happened - facts first -

#1 - ISRO sources said "this was the first time a vehicle had crashed at the first stage"
#2 - "There seems to be a mishap in the first stage separation. Things have gone wrong," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said at a press meet after the incident ( accident, if you may want to call it as)
#3 - There was a delay and there was a postponement in the take off due to a so called minor problem and that minor problem was - One of the pumps with the cryogenic fluid had opened and failed to re-seal. A team had to be sent to close it and ensure that all parameters were normal before the lift-off.

Well are the above facts enough to analyze the situation?

Not at all, we need tons of data that was collected by the telemetry deployed in the rocket but unfortunately public do not have access to that data. As a tester, I would want to look at it but even if I have a solution for their problem, they wont allow me inside.

If a good tester was allowed inside ISRO -

1) When a minor problem of re-seal failure was detected at the last moment, chucking out time constraints and considering the loss if the rocket fails, a good tester would have asked the personnel to do a thorough check once more. ( Regression testing as some stupids may call it as)

2) I am pretty sure, simulation would have been used to test prototypes/pilots and after this incident, a good tester would want to re look at missing requirements of the simulation engine, design defects and carry forward a rigorous testing on the simulation software and of course, give a report on it.

3) A good tester, would guide other scientists there to concentrate equally on upper stages for the next launch and not to get biased by the failure of the first stage.

4) A good tester, would not blame a department or lab of ISRO but would come out and say "Hey guys it is time to share the learning across organization" and would have stressed on different teams and labs discussing the problems -

a) How they found the problem?
b) How they analyzed the problem?
c) Their experience of solving such problem?

5) A good tester, would want to focus more on integration testing as a ROCKET is the most complicated system because of zillion parts getting integrated to form one.

"The only limitation is your imagination".....

_ Are you the good tester ISRO needs?_

If I have to speak from heart, this is what I would say -

1) 99% of the engineers here do not want to join organizations like ISRO, DRDO and take up these challenges, All they want is to test some shit and they do not do that well finally.

2) We are nasty people, we keep asking each other "is there a future for testing, will we get good pay?". We know nothing better than this to ask about testing !

3) We join orkut communities, Yahoo groups, Google groups, Testing forums - a) to look at job postings b) to check which certification course is good for us c) To make friends to send our resume d) Spam- Forward so called funny mails about testing d) Confuse people with our little knowledge and humongous ego e) Honestly, we do a lot of bull shitting.

4) The base for all this to happen is we do not want to think and rely on spoon feeding. I am irritated about some of us here posting messages in a group which has hell lots of members, because one such among many is .... "I have been asked to test a CD for xxxx testing, Let me know as soon as possible how can I do it?" - Ah ! I can't tolerate it. Moreover, to irritate myself, I see the same person posting the same question in 20 different groups, getting 400 different answers and finally gaining nothing.

When I questioned one such guy, he has to say "I will take the most favorable answer".

Well Well Well, time to think to all those who have been reading this...

I have done such mistakes, I admit, also I have realized and come out of it.
Do I need to mention again that, I too have contributed to the nation quitting my high paying MNC job without expecting a return as I have already mentioned in one of my previous posts ?

I am not expecting you people to quit your job and do such things but whatever you are doing, do it with passion else ... else ... I still cant do anything to you !

"You can see bugs fly higher than you, if you miss them during testing a rocket"

.

Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan

pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

.

Disclaimer: I do not mean all people do the things that I have told from my heart but you too must agree most of us do it. The facts given above regarding the rocket incident are taken from an article from Times of India news and I did not add any flavor to it. I am not trying to sound that I am Mr Perfect but it is such people who are making me feel because of their repetitive silly mistakes. Don't make me feel so, is my request !

.

Message to Madhavan Nair : "Sir, Do not worry, someday, soon, we can make ourselves super powers in space. Lot of passionate and good testers are on the upcoming in India and Yes, we will join ISRO"

How to prepare before a war (bug hunt) ?

Hi Reader,

This is one good article ( according to me and my perspective) for young testers of how to proceed when you are on the verge of starting testing. This article could also be helpful to those who have to start testing on a new product and new technology.

Well, I have been mentioning the word *this* and I am pretty sure, you would want to have a local copy of it right.

You just need to right click and open How to prepare for a bug hunt? - article available in Stickyminds.

Thanks and Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan
pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

Prepaid bugs !

Hi Reader,

Prepaid bugs ? "Pradeep do people pay in advance to see a bug?"

Yes, indeed, you too have been a part of it, if you are from India. For other country chaps, alert your mobile service provider...

Did you get any clue ?

__ Prepaid bugs __

We had 2 hours break in a training that I was attending today and I got a chance to interact with a guy. Can there be a chance where I have not talked about testing to anyone ?
Hardly any...

I started off introducing myself and so did he and then we started talking about testing.

He had worked with Tata Teleservices earlier and I happened to ask him
"What was the worst phase of your career with Tata Teleservices?" and the story goes...

Sometime back the prepaid billing system which is deployed in iN ( Intelligent Network ) went for a toss for almost 3 days. This is a well reputed company and how could they have allowed such a thing to happen. You should be aware that there are certain things that goes beyond our control and so it did happen.

The team there started to diagonize the problem and after a day they found out that ... the few servers that interacted with a Avaya soft switch where not communicating with the soft switch as per the design.

As per his explanation the pre-paid billing servers communicate with the Avaya soft switch in a Time Division Multiplexing manner but they found that the Avaya soft switch was unable to take the load as all the servers were trying to ping the switch at the same time and that lead to the whole problem.

Now there are a few questions that had to be answered ...

1) How did this problem occur when it was running fine for a period of 1-2 years ?

Ans: Personnel from Tata Teleservices contacted the Avaya support team and their query being a priority one was routed to the France R&D team and then Avaya consulted their sub-contractors who also worked on the same product. Finally it was identified that it was a hardware failure which lead to mismatch of time slots to ping the switch.

2) What is the solution ?

Ans: A new hardware had to be deployed replacing the faulty one.

3) Why did it further take 2 days to get it fixed ?

Ans: The software/driver/hardware was not available in India at that point of time and someone was sent to Singapore , he then purchased and after his return they fixed it.

4) Wasn't there any back up , come on I don't believe this ? ( This was my question too )

Ans: Yes there was but it took a lot of time to move a customer info from one server to another and that itself would take a lot of time and in the mean time the problem can be fixed and also it would take more time to move from one iN to another and then retrieve it back.

Lessons learnt as a Tester -

I consider this a good learning for me and hence here is what my perception of it ...

1) Ideally Avaya should have got the hardware which failed at Tata Teleservice iN and should put that as a tool to be used for Load Testing for the soft switch they are working on.

2) With an organization outsourcing a job and the outsourced guy again outsourcing to someone and the chain goes on ... will lead to testing becoming more complex at the blackbox/system test level.

3) If it is a real-time or critical application that are installed on real-time networks, there is nothing wrong for a Tester to suggest the organization to buy back up hardware or also maintain a list of nearest Vendor/Retailer list for the products they may be in need.

4) For such a scenario, had the France Testing team asked to reproduce the issue, it would have been the toughest phase of their Testing career and my dear Testers, when you are unable to reproduce something after exhausting your tries, time to burn your hardware and then making a last try.

5) Hardware Testers should take such examples and do a research to find out ways to indicate a hardware failure. Of course there are LED displays for some systems but remember the above problem occured with something called intelligent Network.

6) Testers should ideally look around the world and that is the only way they can progress, you maybe doing some testing on some applications and the above incident may not be of any help to you but if you think you can learn a lot.

__ End of _ Prepaid Bug ! __

"Thinking and Laughing is free of cost in this world , either you think or laugh at yourself"

Regards,

Pradeep Soundararajan

pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

Disclaimer : This post is not to affect any business of Tata Teleservices or Avaya and is an effort to learn from what has happened. Also I take no responsibility if the above incident was unreal and this post is in existance as per what the person I met narrated to me. He too maynot be responsible if he had lied since it is time to appreciate his imagination. No organization I am working with control my thoughts and this post is not from a PC that an organization has provided it to me for official usage. My current ip 192.168.1.100 which belongs to BSNL broadband connection :D

Hot ! Coffee Mug Story and Testing Lessons

Hi Reader,

As more and more people are appreciating the content here, it is my responsibility to post stuff that keep meeting your/their expectations. Initially although I felt its tough but it is getting easier once I re-collect my experiences in this testing career !

As Rita Mae Brown says:
"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment"
( the above quote taken from http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_experience.html )

Here is an interesting story for you all .....

One usual day at work I called up my friend who sits 3 floors below me
"Preetam , baro maga !"( I meant , "Preetam come on" in kannada language)
"Ok dude , meet you at Smoking Zone" was his reply.

We both usually share , chit chat , gyan-ify at SZ , a great place we often visit.
We were having coffee and I started off a discussion as to how this coffee cup would have undergone testing and ...

I thank myself for probing people to come out with their experiences/learnings , I usually end up having a great learning as this one !

He told a story , he says its true and it could be the story of your company too !

__ The Hot ! Coffee Mug story ___

Once a company decided to give a surprize gift to its employees on some occasion of a festival/anniversary and impress them further with an innovative gift.

After a group discussion by the senior management they zeroed on of presenting a coffee mug.
Now what's the innovation there ?

They consulted design experts , art experts and with lot of hardwork they came out with a prototype design and the senior management were happy and confident of the prototype form factor.

They were optimistic on it and went ahead placing the order after a count on head-count ( is this english , write ? :D ) they had to distribute !

The D-Day( decided day, i meant ) came and it was distributed , on opening the gift the employees were thrilled to see design , art and innovation that has gone in to making of a 'great coffee mug' they had recieved as a gift.

After a few days on a regular sortie to all cubicles by one of the senior management employee found that everyone used the 'great coffee mug' as a pen stand .... no hot air :-D noticed above the brim of the 'great coffee mug'.

In a meeting the senior management employee mentioned his observation to other fellas and they were puzzled !

"Why ?" , " not even one had a coffee in it ?" , "were you around them during odd times ?" were some excited queries.

They started researching on it with a high priority since they knew how much time they had spent in the making of 'the great coffee' mug.

In the next status meeting there was an answer to it based on the comments/feedback from the employees...

Want to know what went wrong ?

Simple !

The 'great coffee mug' despite being great at looks and design was unable to fit inside the coffee vending machine available in that company !

Twas tall !

__ End of Hot ! Coffee Mug story ___

Now , How is this anyway related to testing Pradeep ? ( could be your question )

Learnings as a product tester -

1) A requirement collection missed/escape defect.

2) After a prototype is done and by any chance if it looks dazzling and you just want to enjoy staring at it , call for a tester - he would let you know how better it can be done.

3) If you want to surprize someone with a gift like this test it before you give it !

4) Excitement about doing something good should accompany a fear factor that "there could be a major requirement/test case missing".

5) When something looks too good it isn't always !

6) Before you invest on production ensure nothing has escaped from you ! in simple words "test it".

7) To become or to continue to be a good tester you should develop the ability to learn from anything you see around you.

8) Tomorrow or Today , if you are a CEO ensure that one of the senior you hire for your cabinet was a good tester and cotinues to be so even after becoming a senior.

"It could be a simple toilet paper , yet test it else it would end up loosing its worth even in the toilet"

Thanks and Regards

Pradeep Soundararajan
pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

Disclaimer : This post is not to complain against any organization that has gone through the above phase , its just a true concern as a tester to improve the organization's effort to give better gifts to employees and also a token of appreciation to the management of that company who planned , spent time and money to gift 'the great coffee mug'. This post/blog is not pro-tester but learnings of a pro-product-tester.

Technology that failed in India ( Testing Bowl of the world )

Hi Reader,

Once while at work I was getting my test cases reviewed about a project/domain which I was new to and one of my colleague gave a strong comment "Pradeep , please think of more cases".

I was a bit dissapointed because already there were enough test cases that it will take 3 days to complete a cycle and I thought "should I further shoot at my own legs ?" ( the more cases I write , more I have to test , its painful , isnt it ? ) .

I tried to defend that testing would become complex if more cases are there than beyond the objective of the release/product requirements.

Ha ! thanks to what I told , he tshared with me a great story which happened in his previous company and it is one of the best lessons I have had as a tester !

__ This (could be a) is True Story that happened in some company ___

A digital camera was released in the market and after sometime a customer came back complaining that .......

Problem :The camera's software was crashing continously while he tried to capture images.

FIR : They first asked some basic information from the customer and made an attempt to reproduce the issue but it was not reproducible.

Analysis :

1) Software is crashing - so they listed out all possible scenarios where the software could crash.
2) Tried putting the camera to all listed possibilities.
3) Giving a report to the management that it was unable to be reproduced.

Further Analysis :

Taking this as a challenge , a great tester had the following concern -

1) He was concerened what festival was it ?
2) He was concerned what was the customer was trying to capture ?
3) He was concerned what is the frequency of the crash the customer noticed ?
4) He was concerened about all other surrounding factors like temperuature , place where the festival was celebrated ... etc ?

Outcome of Analysis :

1) The festival was Diwali or Deepavali !
2) The customer was trying to capture fire crackers , explosion , fireworks display in an open ground at around 22 00 hours ( night ).

What a fantastic tester was he !

He identified the problem and told the developers

"The camera software is crashing when the viewfinder is black ( because of dark night ) and a sudden gush of light through the firecracker explosion is putting the DSP ( digital signal processor ) to a load/stress beyond its boundaries to display the image. And at this point of time when the user tries to capture it simply crashes"


What he said ?

was right !

Finally they fixed it and now today its a robust digital camera !

____ End of a probable true story _____

Summary of lessons -

1) Collect real time data for testing a product/application.
2) When you are unable to reproduce an issue , think out of the box , think out of the black box.
3) When you are unable to reproduce an issue call someone who can dig deeper than you.
4) Dont assign test case draft to the person who is going to test it, he may omit complicated cases to bring down his/her complexity in executing it.
5) Review the cases with a non team member/customers/domain specailist/tester network.
6) When you release a product : aniticpate and be prepared to face such situation.
7) Hate the product while testing and love the product after its release - emotional testing ( ha new concept introduced by me , i do it , to be frank )
8) Good Testers not only report bugs , they suggest a solution ! ( more to come abt this )
9) Keep learning to be a good tester !
10) Test all your products in India , its Testing Bowl of the world !
11) Dont terminate an issue just because you are unable to reproduce , it could kill your company !

"If you are a good tester you win your customers heart , Mind it she could be beautiful !"

Thanks and Regards

Pradeep Soundararajan
pradeep.srajan@gmail.com
www.testertested.blogspot.com

Disclaimer : This post is no way in any intent to showcase how bad or good a company's product is but it is for sole use to learn a few good lessons for the software or testing community. This may/maynot be a true story and it is posted here not to affect their business or reputation ! This post is dedicated to that tester who saved his company from drowning ( provided its true ).I and any tester would love every product that is there in this world because we know how much of effort has gone through to bring down the product to have just few bugs or one bug as the above example.