Automated testing and sins

It's not often you see an article on software testing where the format makes it stand out, but that is the case on this article on automated software testing. An example of how it treats the sin of Pride is below.

Picture the scene: The wool has been pulled over the eyes of Brimstone Business Application Co’s CIO. He did a deal with a big IT supplier to have their quality-centred products added to his order. At the time it seemed like a good idea – he saved the company money and had a nice round of golf rolled-in to boot. He’d fallen into the superiority trap of believing that the most expensive or most prevalent solution would always be the best, but now was beginning to realise that this particular technology was not actually compatible with his company’s needs. He’d brought this solution in, so his pride was unable to take failure. Instead he persevered until it was too late and placed unrealistic goals on his QA team, who were then forced to revert back to manual testing. As a result the project time-lines slipped, applications went out the door late and bug-ridden, which proved expensive in re-work costs and built up a huge stack of technical debt. His department was now damned to an eternity of fire-fighting the latest problems.

The punishment in Hell will be: to be broken on the wheel.

Avoidance strategy: bigger isn’t always better. Look around when evaluating new solutions.