QA Process Design

This month I have been interviewing some of our colleagues and researching tools for a bug tracking system to be adopted as our standard. What became salient is that the tools are important but irrelevant if we don’t have the necessary processes and disciplines to support it.

Coincidentally this week I was reading the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge newsletter and came across a very interesting article, which made me think about the other incredible important factor on this equation: human resources! We can have the best tools, the best processes and methodologies, but finding testers is still very challenging, and that is because people are challenged by novelty and can’t stand doing the same task over and over again. It is common knowledge that after a while testers get burned out and start making mistakes.

According to the article – summary and link below - a Danish company found the perfect fit for the function. It employs people with a form of autism, that have the characteristics needed for the testing process: high intelligence, precision-oriented skills, deep concentration, and patience to be checking and rechecking outcomes, documenting test plans, and maintaining follow-through.

I think one of the lessons here is that when thinking about QA we need to think about documentation, stress the need of having very detailed test plans to be able to rotate testers and to outsource parts of the process.

Executive Summary:

Software analysts and programmers live to innovate—but hate to run tests. Yet top-notch testing saves many a company money when bugs are caught early. A new case coauthored by HBS professor Robert D. Austin describes the secret behind a Danish consultancy’s success: The majority of its testers have Asperger syndrome or a form of autism spectrum disorder. Key concepts include:

• Techies tend to be idiosyncratically talented. The case “Specialisterne: Sense & Details” is about putting diverse talent where it will be most effective.
• Software testing requires superb powers of concentration combined with tolerance (even preference) for routine tasks.
• Seventy-five percent of the software consultants in the Specialisterne case have Asperger syndrome or some form of autism spectrum disorder.
• Some software testing may be offshored, but mission-critical testing must be done near the client.

For the whole article: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5869.html