The fancy new car has been designed with amazing specs.
It’s been built with high quality materials.
It’s also been crash tested thoroughly to find defects.
And it’s just about to roll off the assembly line.
And then you find out that the engineer decided to redesign the flux capacitor and change the chassis frame and he has just programmed it into the assembly robots.
If you were lead QA – Would you let the redesigned car go into production?
If you were a customer – Would you buy that car?
That’s the same with software design, and the importance of solid QA strategy.
An ex-colleague was aghast that the project team was happy to deploy untested code to production.
Systems Integration Testing had been completed and signed off prior to that, and the Project Manager could not understand why the redesign (and code change) had invalidated it, rendering the weeks of testing totally pointless. 😣
When delivering systems, good test strategy is important – including ENTRY and EXIT criteria. There are different stages that code and build need to be propogated when implementing systems.
It may look like this:
Dev –> QA –> UAT –> Training –> Pre-Prod –> Prod
Or
Dev –> Pre-Prod –> Prod
It should never never never look like this:
Dev –> Prod
Or even
Prod.
😱😱😱😱😱
The Project Manager thought that it was ok to make changes at the last minute, and wondered why the Test Manager had an issue with deploying untested code to prod.
A PM’s job is to manage risk, and manage the project properly.
By deploying untested code to prod, she would be increasing the risk that things can go wrong.
Trying to fix broken code on Prod is a nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on my most enemiest enemy (of which I have none!)
So, if your QA comes to you and tells you there’s an explosive situation – you listen to her. You try and figure out how to defuse the bomb.
You don’t shoot her.
You don’t pretend the bomb isn’t there.
I told her that she can only do her best by raising the risks, and accountability lies on the shoulders of the PM.
Just put on a kevlar vest, and find the nearest bunker.
Sadly, when flaming bits of the project are showering down after the explosion, saying “I told you so” can be quite hollow.
Just… don’t do it.
Listen to your QA.
She’s there to keep you safe. ❤
