Who's to blame?

Sooner or later, either you or your team will be faced with the question, ..."How come that the testers haven't found this bug?" One thing is for sure:

Testers don't create bugs, those are implemented by the developers!

So, the question should rather be:

"Why do we allow developers to implement bugs? And why do we allow them to do it over and over again?".

I cannot think of a single defect where our testers don't ask themselves the question "How could I have avoided this bug to go un-detected" and then update their testware accordingly. But the number of test cases grows with the features while the number of testers is often a constant. What's left are priorities and supernatural smell for defect-finding...sometimes it just doesn't come up to everyone's expectations.

Greed Without Limits

Inspiration for this cartoon came from an article by Daniel Binswanger, found in "DAS MAGAZIN", issued by the Basler Zeitung as of February 7, 2009):

"...Obwohl die UBS 2007 einen Verlust von 4,4 Mia schrieb, zahlte sie knapp das Dreifache des gigantischen Verlustes (12 Mia) als Erfolgsprämie an ihre Mitarbeiter aus. Wenn man diesen Irrwitz zum Massstab nimmt, erscheint das Salärregime 2008 tatsächlich von vernünftiger Bescheidenheit. Allerdings konnte sich der Schweizer Steuerzahler vor einem Jahr noch in der Illusion wiegen, der Grössenwahnsinn der Grossbanker werde das Privatproblem ihrer Aktionäre bleiben. Heute wissen wir, dass wir die Zeche zu begleichen haben..."

It is already the second cartoon on the topic of the financial crisis, but if you carry the thought a bit further, you might find some similarities in the business I am working in.