Using tools that don’t support testing
Recently I had lunch with a group of testers here in Toronto. The topic of bug tracking, support ticket tracking and backend systems in general came up. Each person at the the table had a story to tell about their bug tracking systems or their support ticket tracking systems. Most of the stories weren’t positive. From what I recall every person at the table felt that at least one (or more) of systems their company used didn’t support their work. They weren’t being as effecient and effective as they could be based on their experience with other tools
Why is it that companies do this?
The tools the people at the table were forced asked to use came from above in an attempt to “bring systems together” and to “have one central spot to access everything” of interest.
The general trend seemed to be that this goal was achieved. The information wasall in one spot but the tool did not help in achieving the goal of getting things done quickly and effeciently. One person at the table had a story about a particular test case database that had a front end that so horrible and time consuming to use that the testers wrote automation to populate test cases db from a flat file. Sound like a tool that supports effective and effecient testing doesn’t it?
What’s the solution?
Each person at the table had their own way of dealing with the problem. Solutions ranged from “Well – it’s the system they told me to use so I guess I have to use it” to something like “Yeah – X is the corporate standard but we still use Y anyway. They don’t complain too much about it as long as we give them the metrics they want.”
How would you go about bringing this type of problem to light? This is a problem that involves making your team more productive and effecient. It might also involve changing the “coroporate standard”.
How would you/do you approach this type of thing?
April 30th, 2009 at 11:07 AM
If I really hate a system, I make the system break on a seemingly simple operation in front of a decision maker and make them feel the pain. For instance, if the system is cumbersome to use, I would figure out a way to use it publicly in front of a “decider” whose time is being wasted by it.