testing

This column asks the all-important question, "What isn't there that should be?" The same idea for spotting black holes also applies to spotting "holes in designs and requirements." For example, there are often connections between the quantity of bugs filed against an area and whether the area is thoroughly tested. There can also be holes in what KIND of bugs have been reported. Hendrickson lays out the territory for the search and goes on to suggest how to "look for where there's a lot of nothing."

You're a test manager. But do you manage only the testing? A frustrated test manager recently said, "With my SQA hat, I want to focus on finding defects and discovering risk in the product. With my support hat, I want to solve problems. With my tech pubs hat, I'm trying to get the documentation written. But last week, everyone needed my help at once. I'm only one person—how the heck do I do all that?" Well, maybe you shouldn't have to.

The quality movement started in 1924 when Walter Shewhart gave his boss at Bell Labs a memo suggesting the use of statistics to improve quality in telephones. Later came Juran and Deming, and the movement was well on its way. Not surprisingly, the software industry eventually took up the challenge of systematically improving quality. Let's look at how that began.