I want you to imagine this testing situation:
- An insurance company is doing a full re-evaluation of their pricing system.
- To do this they contract with a marketing research firm.
- That firm runs automation that checks competitors’ prices.
- The analysis shows that the insurance company prices are not competitive.
- To lower their prices, severe changes must be made, including layoffs.
- The new pricing structure comes down from the Business Analysts. Tickets get written up and sized by the developers and management, the developers change the code, and then it reaches the testers.
Should the tester,
A:
Limit himself to checking whether the changes faithfully implement the new price structure?
Or, B:
Also independently investigate that the new prices are reasonable and competitive?
The obvious conventional answer is A. I want to convince you that we should do at least some B.
First, I’m not saying you have to do infinite or arbitrary investigation. I am saying a tester should get involved at the earliest feasible moment to become familiar with the situation.
A good tester tries to understand and appreciate the design process and goals; forms a good understanding of product risk; and asks questions that may ultimately uncover better bugs.
In this scenario, the stakes are high, so it’s especially worth testing more deeply. And in this particular case, the marketing firm didn’t pick up on the discount strategies used by the various companies in the space.
Their automation was too simplistic, in a way that was not difficult to discover– if anyone had bothered to spot check their work.
The story I’m telling you did not happen. But it is exactly consistent with something that did happen at a client of mine.
The kind of testing I’m talking about is Deep Testing and Prospective Testing.
Deep testing means testing that gives us a chance of finding every important bug.
Prospective testing means testing before a product is in a functional state; when it is still an idea.
Deep testing is more expensive, so it must be performed in a targeted way. Prospective testing requires that the tester get involved in the discussions about the design and requirements.
If the tester had been in the meeting with the contracted marketing firm, he would have asked where the information was coming from and how they generated it.
An experienced tester would have known to double check the information (especially since the automation wouldn’t pick up the discounts, unless it was asked to do so of course).
I have spent a lot of time doing deep and prospective testing, both as a tester but also as a manager and team leader. It is a thing I enjoy very much and I am open to taking on projects that need my expertise.
Please reach out if you need a dedicated tester @ Contact/Consulting
