It’s Friday afternoon, the test team have just been handed the latest set of software releases to deploy onto the test environment. The agile project is couple of sprints in at around the midway point and the product management team are preparing to showcase the application to the users. The dev team are making plans to go to the pub for a quick pint after lunch because you see, they’re delivering on time and are feeling pretty proud of themselves.
So you deploy the build, run the automated smoke tests and everything comes up “green”. “Perhaps we’ll be able to join the dev guys for a beer this afternoon” you suggest to your test teammates. A more senior member of the team raises a single doubtful eyebrow… you get down to testing…
Regression scripts run through fine after an initial hiccup with stale test data is sorted out, then it’s on to the new stuff. “Dean’s Dream Team” as they like to call themselves have introduced a new option to the application to compare period on period data. Users have been asking for this since version 1 and are dying to see it in next week’s showcase.
You’ve read the brief, you’ve familiarised yourself with the wireframe, you’ve got the data set up and you’re ready to test the pants off of this new feature.
Just seven minutes in and things are looking good. The tables are displaying data, charts are rendering nicely. Dean comes over to your desk (with is jacket already on) “Hey Ali, looks good doesn’t it?” he says. “Yeah, nice curves” you reply. “We’re going to the pub for lunch, probably gonna knock off early. Wanna join us?” he asks.
“Okay” you say,” just a few tests to run and we’ll meet you there.” “Cool, see you later” Dean goes off and sits on one of The PMs desks for another quick chat about the coming weekend’s football plans.
So you carry on testing… You look more closely at the tables, the values all look a little strange. The previous period’s values look pretty consistent whereas the latter period values are all over the place. You check the database. Your SQL query returns consistent data. Smells like a bug… a big one! If the users generate bad reports, management will use them and end up making bad decisions. You run a few more tests using different data sets and the fault persists. You show your team mates. “Bug!” is the cry. Then you show the test manager. With no hesitation he advises, “Ali, you need to talk to Dean about this and fast before he disappears!”
Dean was literally just about to walk out through the door. You have to run to catch up with him. “Hey Ali, you finished testing already. You coming to the pub with us?” He asks. “How do I tell him? You think to yourself. He’s in good spirits, he’s looking forward to a pub lunch and a couple of beers, more worryingly, he’s been smugly proclaiming in every daily standup meeting how he’s ahead of schedule with the new feature, how few issues there have been through unit tests and integration tests, how wonderful everything is. If you don’t do it right, it’ll be like telling a man that his new born baby girl… is ugly!
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