Test Management is Wrong

Test Management is wrong. There. I said it.

I can't believe it took me this long to notice the obvious. If you are doing Software Development in any fashion, and are worried about how to manage your testing to develop a "quality" product, stop it.

Let's be clear about what I mean here. If you consider any software development life cycle (SDLC) process, you will find activities like the following arranged in some fashion or other:

• Requirements gathering, specification
• Software design
• Implementation and Integration
• Testing (or Validation)
• Deployment
• Lather, Rinse, Repeat (i.e. Maintain, Enhance, Fix, Mangle, Spin, and so on)

These activities aren't Waterfall or Agile or anything else, they are just activities. HOW you choose to do them will reflect your SDLC. I don't care about that right now. The part I'm picking on is the Testing bit near the middle, regardless of whether you do them in an agile, Waterfall, or some other way.

In particular, I am picking on the fallacy or myth that a good Test Management plan/process is what you need to develop and release a high Quality product.

Radiating Testing Information - Part 1

This topic is one that I have been asked about many times over the years and I am long overdue for a detailed discussion of it. Back in 2006 I presented an Experience Report at the STiFS workshop in New York titled "Low-Tech Testing Dashboard Revisited." The content of that presentation will be in Part 2. To quote "The Do-Re-Mi Song" from the movie The Sound of Music, "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."

I attended the StarEast conference in 1999 and there was a talk by James Bach titled "A Low Tech Testing Dashboard." This presentation clicked with me as I was managing several test teams at the time and it addressed a problem that I felt was important. I have used this communication tool many times ever since. If you are not familiar with it, I suggest you read through the PDF slides on the Satisfice web site before you continue. Go ahead. I'll wait.

In this review I will cover some of the who, what, where, when, how and why of the Low Tech Testing Dashboard (LTTD) through examples from past projects I have worked on. I expect your context is different, so my hope is that these examples may help you think about how you might apply this communication tool on your project.