When I was 6 years old, I went bluegill fishing with my uncle Kevin in Wisconsin. Uncle Kev knew how to catch bluegill and every time he got a bite, he handed me his fishing pole and said, “Tug the line!” then “Reel it in, I think you got one!”
I’ve been coaching a member of our support staff on a testing assignment. When she completed her testing, I ran some follow-up tests of my own and found a bug. Rather than logging the bug, I gave her some suggested things to try and hinted that there may be a bug. She found it! What a thrill! She also got to log it. Cool!
What’s the lesson?
- As with fishing, testing without catching bugs can get boring. It’s important to let newbies catch some bugs.
- When someone finds a bug you missed, it’s humiliating. When the tables turn and you find the missed bug, maybe it’s time to set your ego aside and put your coaching hat on.
2 comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
RSS
Could not agree more. That was an issue for me in my first test lead role.
I could not let go of my need to find defects for a long time.
When I finally realised that it was disheartening for them to find stuff and then realise it had been already logged, I let go.
It was wonderful to see how motivating it was for the team to show me what they had found. Within little or no time, they were finding stuff I had missed as they got the confidence to apply their wealth of their experience to testing the product.
I agree with your post. I am a fresher and my lead did the same thing to me. He encourages me to find more bugs.