Testing under Pressure

Abstract

“For most of us, testing shares more in common with emergency response than with airplane maintenance. In a perfect world we’d check the torque on every bolt, and leave the runway with 100% certainty every flight. Most testers don’t have that luxury; we’re thrown at problems, and have to solve them as quickly as we can, with whatever tools we have. We’re expected to quickly understand new contexts, to deal with high pressure, low resources, and rapidly evolving situations. I’ll be comparing my experience as a firefighter to my experience with testing. We have to imagine the worst case: we enter a scene with little or no information, an urgency of action, and limited resources. It’s imperative to get in and out quickly, to prioritize the critical, high impact response, and to handle whatever unexpected challenges the job is going to throw at you. Every situation is different, and there’s never enough information, so how do you prepare for the unknown?”